i write a poem

The edge of the row of the mostly-empty plane, three hours from Boston and home and all I can think is how the words have left me. Because there is nothing like holding my nephew for the first time, nothing like wondering at it, nothing like feeling his breathing slow to the steady hum of sleep, nothing like singing him "Come Away with Me" with Norah Jones on repeat in the kitchen, offering him my voice and my swaying hips, my own breathing steadied by his. 

It makes me want to be a writer again, makes me want words to take wing into your heart - and I am remembering how on the days in college when I was afraid I would read poetry in slim soft covers and savor the words, tasting the way I wanted to write. Because I could tell you the story about holding him, the steadied breathing, the sway, the Norah Jones, even the kitchen - 

but I want to give you poetry.

And I want to render thanks to God that way, in a poem written on a plane late at night coming home from a visit that was pure gift. I want to put my poor love for this world into words in slim soft covers someday, put them in your bookshelves and in your hearts, tell the story of how I have been loved, wildly loved, and how I long to live and move in this world, by writing poems.

And so, last night, thinking about poetry, thinking about the steadied breathing of my nephew and the beautiful swirling days of fall, sitting at the end of a row on a plane, I wrote.

Trainspotting

The crickets are resurrected,
singing.
The desert of the station feels the echo.
Everywhere is thirst,

Everywhere, wanting.
I wait, swing my legs along the yellow strip of warning
near the tracks:

Where are you?
The world shivers heat
and I wait, a blue
dress falling down my back.

I am a moment,
An ocean, a longing voice
in the chorus of the night.  

Somewhere, in your day, may poetry find you, and bring you something beautiful.

Love,
hilary