Poems

I absolutely LOVE this poem. It is SO wonderful. It was in the most recent issue of the Bifocal Newsletter (one dealing with elder law). Enjoy!

Poems

By Sofia Memon

Poems are where you are not;
where I examine the light
in the leaves or
the Yogi teabag wisdom
to my heart’s content without
ever turning my attention
outward.

Poems are where alchemy is
unquestioned and love unrationed,
where the soldiers in wars started
by misers find themselves suddenly
in prayer shawls
ill-fitting or not,
over still muddy combat boots
feeling a sudden and surprising
calm spread over their faces,
involuntary and embarrassing
like incontinence.

Poems promise everything
you’ve grown out of will be
returned to you
washed out, dried on the line
scented in lavender
if only you’d give up and give in
give away even the
lint from your pockets and
start again and again
and again every morning.

Poems are fearless when they
can afford to be,
say everything we could not
make the elegant argument
that, lacking citation
and polemic
is nonetheless persuasive;
maybe because poems, like
mirrors demand that
we approach with hands folded
awareness that
we are asking for everything
we are not yet.