I began writing serious poetry on August 31, 2001. Yes, I remember the date, because I was at home, laid up after a heart attack scare (it wasn’t one), and during those days at home decided to try my hand at it. The poem I wrote, “The Spring House”, is included in the one poetry book I’ve published, Daddy-Daughter Day. One person has told me it’s the best poem she’s ever read. Of course, she’s only seen it after it’s gone through much pondering and editing.

But of late, say for the last two years, poetry barely comes to me, either by inspiration or perspiration. I think if I should decide this evening to sit and write a poem, I would be unable to. I’d stare at a blank sheet of paper, perhaps write a title, and then…nothing.  Knowing a poem should consist of images and metaphors, with lines as the defining unit, I’d search my brain for an image or metaphor that would illustrate the title, but then…nothing would pass out of my brain. I’ve even found it impossible to write simple haiku (though, granted, my rules for haiku are somewhat more restrictive than what many people use).

I could speculate long on why this has happened. Is it life closing in on me, squeezing me? Is it the heavy concentration on prose writing over the last four years? Is it the turmoil in the world? Is it any of twenty other things I could write? Or probably the combination of them?

Or, perhaps, I was destined not to be a poet. Perhaps that was a false start on my writing career. Perhaps prose is my field, not verse. I used to sense inspiration on my noon walks, or while commuting to and from work. I’d observe something in nature, and begin a haiku in my mind, without being able to write it. Perhaps one in four or one in five of these might find its way to a completed haiku, and survive until I was back at the office or at home and could write the words on paper. I have dozens of pieces of paper with these haiku on them, waiting to be gathered and put in a retrievable file.

But, as I say, even these simple stanzas eluded me. But yesterday, on the way home, I was thinking about this. Since inspiration wasn’t there, I decided to try perspiration—work at it. I observed the sky. Cumulus clouds were ahead of me, to the north: towering, white, fluffy. The same clouds were to the west, with the lowering sun giving them a back-lit quality. Traffic was more or less normal. My health, well, yesterday was a bad day. I had an increase in sinus drainage and, I think, a high blood sugar episode. I spent half the afternoon simply sitting at my desk, getting nothing done, but being there in case someone needed me.

I took all these elements, and over five minutes of driving was able to hack out a haiku, using my rules, which include the 5-7-5 syllables as being the longest allowed, not a fixed amount. I did break one haiku convention, in that the third line is actually a metaphor, whereas haiku are supposed to be images, not metaphorical. I doubt my editor will care.

I thought it wasn’t bad, and said it over and over till I was home. There, I became immediately involved in supper prep and forgot to write it down. It wasn’t till about 10 p.m., more than four hours after the writing, the I realized I needed to commit it to paper. Fortunately I remembered it, found a note pad, and “created” it in tangible form. That means it’s copyrighted, even in manuscript.

It’s still not in a retrievable file yet. Perhaps that will happen tonight. And I’m not saying it’s a good poem. But it was a creation wrought of perspiration, finding a little inspiration from intentional observation. I’ll take it, and maybe build on it. I considered posting it here, but think I’ll not inflict it on my couple of readers.