In Which the Poet Pushes to Remain Conscious

Vengeful Sprites.  "Cain" by Sophie Blackall*

I finally input the draft of the poem I scribbled early this month at the Met.  Like "St. Sarah Sarai Carrying the Infant Christ Child"--first published in the Mississippi Review (R.I.P.), the poem overtook me.

It's too soon to know if the new poem, written in full draft while I sat on a bench facing a great from the catalog of Euro art.

My point is, however--and I'm using this space as a Memo to Sarah, Hello! Already. Probably the most consistent story in my life that isn't the story of MY LIFE can inspire a poem. It won't necessarily do so.  No sure thing. 

But my intuition says, and pretty loudly given I'm bidden to make it public and relatively, in the way of blog postings, public, keep at it.  Go back to the source. I also note "Remorse"--which was published in Terrain (a thriving online journal) (scroll down--it's the 2nd poem there). It was inspired (I'm using "inspired" as a placeholder--there is a more accurate description unavailable to me) by a story in Genesis.

What I'm saying to myself is Why not push harder to write poems on this theme, aligned to this mythology, belief, religion, wildly active participant in the collective mind?

Huh, Sarah? Don't let yourself bury the impulse in mystery novels and searches for the perfect purse.

*For more on Sophie Blackall, wonderful artist, visit her Facebook page, Sophie Blackall.