The Poem I Cannot Write/ Is The Poem Beyond My Own Poetry Poem by Shalom Freedman

THE POEM I CANNOT WRITE/ IS THE POEM BEYOND MY OWN POETRY

The poem I cannot write
Is the poem beyond my own poetry -
It is greater than what I am capable of -
It surprises in ways my awkward phrases cannot
It is complex beyond my simple simplicity
It has an infectious beauty
That demands to be recited again and again -
It lingers in the mind and memory
As a strange new beauty beyond anything done by anyone else before.

The poem I cannot write
Has been written will be written
By those greater than myself-
I have the great blessing
Of being able to read them
But I cannot join them
Despite a lifetime of trying.