Poems about Poetry

I.

I used to think that poems about poetry were the lamest
Like writing a song about singing, but worse

Now I realize those poets weren’t writing about writing
They were talking about how life finds us
And how we learn to abide it--
The no-more-hiding
The being lost, then being found by what matters
And the way our soul stands stilled and stranded, surrounded by it
Afraid to look full at it

II.

Which reminds me of something I heard recently:
That good thoughts--
Of love and mirth and family--
Are like Teflon butterflies bouncing off our brains
And that grungies are like Velcro, latching on like coffee stains
(Beautiful thoughts elusive, like hackneyed butterflies
Now, that makes sense to me)

So,
If you want to be a bowl for beauty
You have to pause and warm up your circuits a bit
You have to stand and stare at the beauty around you
Fifteen seconds, that’s the length of it
And the butterflies become a balm, to cover and smother your sighs

It’s not unlike how I stand in my driveway
Staring through the cold of my breath each morning
As my scooter whines its way to life, ready to ride

I stand there and let the motor oil up
And, in the waiting, through my deep breaths I see again
The leaves, bouncing in a dance line,
And the little line of clouds along the hill-rise
And I call to mind the verse about God riding the sky

III.

We are blessed
Or, rather, the blessing finds us
When what needs finding finds us
Comes to us as truth which will become its lesser self, as we handle it:
A poem,
A thought reduced to page and pen and line or rhyme
The great big void of perfect sky and sea which,
On the page,
Becomes a key-hole
Opening to the great hallway of beyond

VI.

So, of course there are poems about poetry
As sure as sight finds a blind man who, for a moment, sees