First, the ecstasy,
a spray of fresh images
received, excite the body
shuddering with new lyrics
conceived in a flash of knowing,
not complete, but enough,
gravid with possibility.
Then, gestation,
mitosis of imagination,
the laying of muscle and verb,
arrangement of noun and bone,
the poem, fattening into life,
sleeps in the amniotic sea
nourished by rich remembrances.
Slowly its own rhythms emerge
and sustain themselves
stark new and ready to be born.
Nativity,
the bearing down
forced through the final order of os,
shoved free from mother mind,
and kissed to life, a song.
1971