Poetry is a slow passion.

Poetry is
a slow passion.

It falls from stomach
and down, to the heart.
Fingers yield
the point
to page.

Poetry is
taken from the page.
Crumbled, thrown
and set on fire
to warm the bare feet
of mother and child.

Poetry is
a mother’s lesson
to child
who listens and learns.

This child
grows
into a fine
young man
who writes.

DLG
6/89

My mother, who died when I was in my forties, was a slippery force in my youth. She was always dying—she was given two years to live when I was 12. So she smoked, and worked, and read books—hundreds of books. I felt independent and yet I was so far from that. it was, after all, a gift.