a poem once

I wrote 

a poem
on lined paper

     a poem begun
     too long ago
     in a time before

I wrote a poem
with the fresh wind
in my ears

     a poem  
     I knew only 

     by its shape

     a poem
     on the nature
     of things

     a poem where
     I was as young
     as fair weather

     where I thought
     I knew what
     it was to write

     where my
     words sounded
     like a song

     where my
     voice echoed
     as if I could sing it

I wrote that poem
too many years ago
and left it behind

     a poem 

     I should
     later complete

© BH, 1971/2021

---

Tidying, searching the archives (such as they are) I found another poem that had lain idle for fifty years. This is what the rewrite became: a reference to the original and its half-a-century amendment. Perhaps this what poems must do: sleep out two generations and arrive at themselves by a kind of accident.

The illustration is the 1971 original (in part). Some later lines were too embarrassing to repeat even after all this time.