0009 Favorite Poem Poem by Michael Shepherd

and you can’t remember much
about the first time you read it except
that it held you to the end, but most of all
this one line, which seemed to hold
the key to the whole poem

as if you were opening the closet of your mind
to bring out something which you knew was there
but instead something way at the back
called to you and you remembered
a moment from way back you thought
you had forgotten

and then you read the poem again
in company with the poet and
yes that’s it, and the two of you
became friends for life, almost
related.

So, now you’ve read all their poems,
feel some more than others but
as if you wrote them all in the same room
where you read them together
and you wait for their new book with
a sorta family pride

and like family,
you leave the poems for a spell,
grow up a little, then
come back to visit -
they mean more;
can it be,
you've both grown?
each time you come back to them
you carry them more close to you

in fact you feel that you could write
poems very much like theirs
as if you’d inherited, too,
the family gift

and though you wouldn’t of course
seek them out in person except
in a reading where you’d
have to share their warmth
with the rest of their extended family
but not say much since
you are a, well, close relative,

if you happened to be driving a route
not far from them, you’d detour,
park a little distance from their house,
but have it in your sight,
hope you might catch a movement,
wait a few minutes, then
start the car with almost a sigh

half relieved that you didn’t have to try
on their cautiously polite doorstep
to find words to say
you love them in their words,
which you almost wrote together,
lived them together;
love them like life itself,
love them