Author Alice Sebold, as quoted in today’s Writer’s Almanac, (she) “gets up every day at 4 a.m. to write because, she says, “If you start in the dark, the judges are all asleep.””
More a fond note to my caretakers
rather than a business memo, I write—
Oh my darlings, my judges,
who have given me so much
(who else would stop the various
disasters of fashion and faux pas
you steered me away from?)
What I need of you now is a certain
Drowsiness.
We are all getting older, including you,
Including me. We all need our rest and our work.
Let us understand each other.
When time appears with a poem curled
in its palm, a small span a snippet
a smidgen of time holding a handful
of the right words (words here and quickly gone again
a poem or a dream) could you, my sweet ones, my protectors,
my worried helpers, my kind curmudgeons, please
Please nod off? Gently, drift into your leather armchairs
and doze whenever they knock.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 