A Poem for a Thursday #235

Linda Pastan isn’t a new poet for me but I do really like her description of discovering a poet. And I love wildflowers. So, all in all, this poem made me happy. I hope you like it too.

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

A New Poet
Linda Pastan