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.

A Toast to Matthew, after Death by Amanda Lamarche

I want to say there was vast injury to more 
than me, that all altered; your house gutted

by wind, the doors blown from the hinge.  I
want to say that birds began flying, stunned,

into each other, that even the dirt turned
to troubling itself over you.  But, in all truth

very little has changed: the phlox has taken
over the cobbled walk, the clouds are directed

by the weather-vane.  The old cow leads herself
to the mud now, sloping her head in the small

hope of heeding you again, of feeling the load
of your hand on her.  What we had believed

could not live long without us, stirs up flies,
staggers stubbornly through.  Here’s to you.

~ from The Best Canadian Poetry 2008 (Tightrope Books, 2008)