“compelled as ever”
I write because I must–
because the hour arrives unbidden
and yet expects to be received.
There is a kind of trembling in it,
a soft urgency,
as though the words themselves
have travelled far
and would be wounded
to find the door closed.
And so I open it.
I take up the pen
not out of pride,
nor even out of confidence,
but because something in me
would feel strangely unmade
if I turned away
from what has come.
The poem insists.
The moment insists.
And I–
I simply answer,
as I have always done,
grateful that the Muse
still knows my name.
.
