PO-EMotion #30- RELIEF

April is National Poetry Month. Every year, my dear friend, and Poet Extraordinaire, Mary Lee Hahn, chooses a theme and writes a poem every day. She blogs and posts at two different places- YEAR OF READING and her fabulous new poetry blog, POETREPOSITORY.

This year's theme was PO-EMotions. Mary Lee promised, "I will write a poem a day that either evokes an emotion, or uses an emotion word in the title or body of the poem. Her list of emotions is here. 


Today is the last day of April! And we made it! Phew!

"Relief"

I am relieved to know
I do not have to write a poem 
tomorrow. 

I do not have to rise 
long before the sun 
and stare at the computer screen
hoping words 
will magically appear.
And I do not have to
sit there after 
a zillion hour teaching day
cursing myself
for ever thinking 
that I might have thirty poems
to put out into the world.

I am relieved to know
I do not have to write 
a poem tomorrow. 

I do not have to feel guilty
because I am not doing school work
or house work or yard work
or any kind of work
because I am poem-ing.
And I do not have to scramble
around the glove compartment
desperately searching
for a writing implement
as the light changes 
and other drivers honk
but still I sit there
knowing that I must capture 
that one perfect word or line
before it is forever gone

I am relieved
to know 
I do not have to write 
a poem 
tomorrow. 

At the same time
I will miss 
our poetry community
Mary Lee's surprising images
her ever exquisite choice of words
the way she packs so much
into  so little space

And I will miss 
Kimberly's classroom vignettes
Kay's faith
Steve's prose poems
Linda's haiku
Carol V's glimpses of nature
Jone's "ll" words
Kevin's technological creations
and Heidi's surprising connections

Even so
I am relieved
to know 
I do not 
have 
to write 
a poem 
tomorrow. 

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2015