thousand and one
it is
not so bad
to reach the place
where another poem
is not possible
when you have been
scraped clean
of metaphor
emptiness a good place
to escape through
emptiness is door to a place
from which
to say i wrote
a thousand poems
and then stopped
and did something else
after a thousand poems
i stopped being a poet
i didn't just fade away
the break was
decisive
then you will see
a delicate pink rose
on the tide-line
or clouds tumbling
down mount cargill
clouds whitened
by the late sun
and struck
by a brightening
rainbow
and you know
you are lost again
know you have been
left behind
Copyright 2000 Robert Johnston