There are some days many poems
begin themselves in me, and I am
given many first lines.

They come fast those days, and I
have to catch them as they rise
like a thousand geysers

shooting up from a vast barren land
(in shards of what could be held
in the hands) before leaving as

child’s balloons. I do not catch them
all, I do not even catch many. I
manage to touch just a

few. Still I am thankful for those
days. On those days I can feel the
ground shake from their rising,

the ground underneath, whence
they came. The tremor and pulse,
whence I came.