traditions
family customs
recipes passed on
one generation to the next
memories
gifts from the past
to be shared
in the present
03/29/2024 j.g.l.
How many relationships
have been remembered, or explored,
in the attempt to forge a perfect poem?
Memory reminds you of your place.
It doesn’t matter, now or then,
who devised your initial reaction
to the many sorry mistakes.
How many regrets,
how many evil thoughts, forsaken
sentiments or countless untruths
have you counted on, or encountered, in
an effort to scratch out your prose into
a form another human may accept, yet
allow you to go on living?
How many mornings, how many
pencils, how much coffee, has been wasted
trying to find the right word?
Each purposeful letter you surrender to
a page has been there, here, or
elsewhere before.
If only your cluttered thoughts.
No poem is perfect, even those from bards
you envy or admire. They too had faults
as countless as your own.
It is through collective imperfection that
we learn and continue learning.
Without flaws we have so very
little to write about.
© 2022 j.g. lewis
April is Poetry Month
we’ve been here before