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.

Clear to me now by Marlene Cookshaw

what I planted this morning
was not cabbages but faith
in the future, little tag end
to I-know-not-what.  In that

the exhilaration, giddy
as license to desire.  I’ve
put my hand in next year,
thrown my lot in with earth’s,
harrowed, sweated, given over

and stood back.  Counted.  Enough
kale for us, the neighbours,
ducks.  Come spring, more
yellow promises: bunched blossoms.

See where the mind goes?  Between 
the lovely knots, a silk always
strong enough to bear it’s weight.
That throwing’s what I love, what
I would give my life to.

Lacinato.  Champion.  Rougette.
Red cabbages dense and beautiful 
as turbans, roses, words, like a row 
of toothy kisses, sweet, unmanageable, raw.

~ from Shameless (Brick Books, 2002)