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 Serenade by Sekine Hiroshi
Tapping me on the back, the night says, “Don’t stay home. Go look for what you lost yesterday.” What I lost yesterday resembles what I had lost the day before yesterday, and what I lost the day before yesterday, resembles what I had lost the day before that: The backside of the board slipping down perpetually; something that vanishes each time I go looking for it; the nightly thirst while I’m walking along roads full of chuckholes carrying an empty bag. Perhaps it is something small. Perhaps it is visible, perhaps invisible. Perhaps it is something like a right. I dream that the bag is too heavy for me to carry, and when weightless morning comes I do it all over again. Today I found an utter stranger looking for the same article that I had lost. ~ from What Have You Lost, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (HarperCollins, 1999)