Unfinished

The world is full of unfinished poems.

The early lines flow like creamy honey,

ink spread across the page

like softened butter on

loaves fresh from the oven.

I feel the elation

of a puzzle-piece well-placed,

the joy of alliteration,

lines well-paced.

But then comes a time

when the pen runs dry.

The garden hose has kinks

and the dahlias are drooping.

The stack of scratch paper

where I scrawl my poems

grows ever thicker.

I wonder if this one

will end up there, too.

But perhaps that stack is 

not a graveyard but a

greenhouse --

A safe space for new-sprung sprouts

to send out roots,

unjudged by voices of haste.

I read that dahlias may droop

in times of stress --

Who doesn't when faced with the

unfinished poems of our lives?

But the secret of their sagging

stems is this:

water sent from leaves

to strengthen roots.

So when we feel that all our

poetry has turned to stammering

and the puzzle, once so thrilling,

is far from done,

Meet me in the greenhouse,

warmed by sunlight,

where a tender gardener

will write the lines to come...

October 4, 2020

Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash