I would rise above the moments
of descending self-doubt,
but so often, alone, I am a bird with no wings.
It is then that momentary, scattered shadows
draw my attention upward,
where, through a massive gray of clouds,
sunlight emerges through sundry spaces,
pillars of light that span the sky,
and reach to beckon the Earth inside me.
A baby smiles for the first time,
a stranger passing by
catches eye and nods “hello,”
a hand opens a door just before I get there,
a fellow impassioned writer clicks “submit”
upon a poetry site,
and by their draft,
I rise
with wings to fly.
© Katherine Michaels, 2012
Reviews
I’m glad you wrote this passage. Others should aspire to such honesty of self expression. You show us how the poetry of others can offer healing moments when we get lost within.
Mark Andrew J. Terry
Inspiration becomes almost magical. The bird with no wings finds itself aloft. Images of sense and experience become the poetic magic that instills in the poet the ability to fly with suddenly present wings.
The poem is just beautiful. By the click of “submit” it becomes that inspiration celebrated in its very expression. Every poet who senses here the drafts which rise for imaginative consciousness may soar above rather than sulk below the massive gray of clouds of self-doubt.
Benjamin G. Mosley