Borges in his lecture "A Poet's Creed," said, "I think of myself as
being essentially a reader. As you are aware, I have ventured into
writing; but I think that what I have read is far more important than
what I have written. For one reads what one likes -- yet one writes not
what one would like to write, but what one is able to write."
If I am simply writing what I am able to write, then I would agree with
Borges, but that hasn't been my experience. If I am writing my best
poetry then it is not I who am able, it is something else, and I write
what I must write. My "ability" is submerged or set aside -- at least
that is the way it works -- or feels -- just an image or two comes to my
mind and my "ability" is to not turn away from it. Beyond that, where
does it all come from? Was it all there in my mind, jumbled up, needing
to be sorted out. That is what Susan used to tell me, and yet . . .
consider the image that began my last poem, a poem written on December
1st, 2015:
I marched a long while
Near the edge of town,
Looking out, having no
Place to go and no reason to
Stay. I checked my weapons --
Getting dark as it was and night
Was when it could be --
And then the last stanza
Their boots and the clank of
Their gear. I saw their gleaming
Teeth and smiles. I held my
Rifle in my left hand. They came,
Knowing we had no steadfastness.
Having lost my own, I drew my
Colt and pulled the hammer back.
If I were in truth (rather than in metaphor) to march along the edge of
town, what is beyond that edge is a lot of open area, desert and
mountains and the Loma Linda Medical Center that a few months ago
determined that Susan could not be saved. On the next major street over
from the Medical Center, on Waterman a shooting took place on December
2nd that killed 14 and injured many more. My son lives a very short
distance from the facility where the shooting took place, and my
grandson was working at an Amazon.com facility, heard the gunfire and
was there when his facility was locked down.
So I was metaphorically walking post at the edge of my town a short time
before the shooting took place. Was my poem prescient, describing what
was shortly to occur, a militant attack? That doesn't seem likely; so
was it mere coincidence? Perhaps.
Had I been writing what I as able to write as Borges said, I would say
it was undoubtedly a coincidence, but since I was writing what I must, I
have doubts . . . sitting here thinking about them . . . waiting for the
next unbidden thoughts to sound in my mind.
Lawrence
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