The Muse: Her Absence Poem by Daniel Brick

Oh, Muse, where do you reside?
How far from my familiar space
is the place you call home
with your eight sisters as companions

of the hearth and even Lord Apollo
as a member of your household? Is it
so far from my humble dwelling beneath the moon?
Does your heart long to stay with them,

your closest family and dearest friends?
In this we are alike, goddess and man. We humans,
if we must travel, want to move always toward,
and not away, from those we love.

But travel you must if you are to touch
that inner chamber in a poet's heart
which releases poem after poem in frenzy
or in calm but always in holy delight.

I know I am given to hyperbole -
Forgive me if it strikes you as ingratitude.
It is simply my mind's readiness to make poetry
that anxiously awaits your fulfilling touch.

And so I enter this pine-scented grove
in the resonant quiet of this winter afternoon,
and walk slowly and reverently toward
whatever encounter you deem me worthy.

Take your time, beloved Muse. I have all
the time in the mortal world. It spreads out
before me like a desired summer landscape
poised in wonder and light calling itself HOPE.