Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

On Swimming by Adam Zagajewski

The rivers of this country are sweet 
as a troubadour’s song, 
the heavy sun wanders westward
on yellow circus wagons.  
Little village churches 
hold a fabric of silence so fine
and old that even a breath
could tear it.  I love to swim in the sea, which keeps 
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he’s been on the road.  
Swimming is like a prayer: 
palms join and part,
join and part, almost without end.

~ from Without End: New and Selected Poems 
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, 2002)