A Poem a Day

It's been ten days now that I've been writing a poem a day with Lisa and Elizabeth, and it has made such a wonderful difference in my life.

When I went to the Boulder Philharmonic concert last weekend, for an eclectic (to say the least!) program that paired Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto with Frank Zappa's Be-Bop Tango and G-Spot Tornado, the program notes had this quote from Zappa: "Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music. Music is the best."

I don't love music all THAT much, and I was thinking that I would have ended the series with love: "Beauty is not love. Love is the best."

But the search for love has been, well, it's been going badly. And each bad installment leads to another daily poem. And once I have the poem, I start to feel better about the heartache. I start to feel that the heartache was worth it for the sake of the poem.

Here's my poem from yesterday:

Loneliness

There is
a loneliness
so deep
that a stone
dropped
to the bottom
of it
makes no sound.
Yet I still
strain
to hear
a muffled
splash,
however distant,
some small sign
that there is
water
somewhere
waiting for me
to sink
beneath,
not denying
to my flung
pebble
even a place
to drown.

Writing the poem made me less lonely. It made me feel connected to all lonely poets everywhere. Love is not poetry. POETRY is the best.