“I hate poetry,” my son said to me today.  “Everyone does.” As usual I laughed about him being the knower of everyone.  But walking back from the library, four poetry books in my bag – four from four shelves worth, chosen almost randomly – I wondered about it.  I don’t know the land of poetry, or its history – its topography, geology, political lines.  I know a few poets I like, some I love.  I know I have been influenced by poets at different times in my life, where it feels like their music gets into my blood and makes my words sing like theirs.  But I don’t know how to find more like them.  I’m thinking I need to.

I wrote the following poem in 1976, after a magical walk on a magical beach in Wales.  In my efforts to capture the occasion and how it moved me, I felt influenced by the work of Dylan Thomas.  

The night is silver and lace,

lace dragging mirrors

down to the sea

back to the black deep etched in foam

laced in swirling form

silver in its dance for the ruling moon.

Mirrors glint and recede –

the lace comes again to the shore

to cast them

and drag them slowly back as they

reflect the sky.

as sand reflects sky

the sky reflects sea

clouds reflect the foam

the depth of the sea reflects the moon.

The black islands say nothing, though the moon

is riding in a violet-blue carriage surrounded by rainbow

The dull, humble textured cliffs watch

while tousled clouds walk lofty

lost

in reverie

floating in a cave of wind.

Silent in the darkness

a stone

is smooth and black

with a white ring of lace around it.