The Spring Picker

I told him how sometimes

I can finish a poem in minutes

Like my mind and fingers

are bedeviled

and I like it when it’s done

And that I’m usually surprised

by what it’s about

and why I’ve written it

But how other times

It’s an ordeal

Forty or so words

that I can labour over

for days

Visits to a thesaurus

Struggles with alliteration

meter and the like

Travail and only to

hate it when it’s done

My father who’s a poet

my favorite said he feels

there’s always a poem

some place in a poet

Being forged in the subconscious

Like an underground river

Bubbling forming forking

conjoining

in the pitch dark

Threading its way to the surface

to the light

Somewhere sometime

for whatever reason

Let it flow

I liked that