Permission to be a poet

It's something only you can give yourself: a space to create, sweet as ripe cherries. To find it, buy it with love for your creative self, wrap it in ethereal sheets of time, and then unwrap it as though you deserve every crinkle of the delicate paper and every silky ribbon of ink. You give yourself permission to NOT write a word. Not even think. To drift, a poet in poet time with the willingness to do absolutely nothing if that's what comes. To think about writing without necessarily saying anything is permission. Here's a poem about it from my book Gods of Water and Air.
 
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Such is the fate </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">of so much art. But only the serious kind.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">At least this artist won’t starve.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">Looking at a half bowl of cherries</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">I still want to create. Maybe a painting</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">of the pits in another bowl, so much life</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">gone by. Or perhaps a poem about the greed</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">of the painter for sensuous delight, story</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">of artists and their models through the ages</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">and also the story of the art</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">that was never made</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">while they became their own</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">works of art. Jade bowl. Stems.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">Hungers ripe and aching.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">Summer’s half moon warmth.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">Tender flesh. (Note to self:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">They were so ripe and cold.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">Put cherries on the grocery list. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="messagebody"><span style="font-family: Palatino; mso-fareast-font-family: MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB;">The dark ones this time.) </span></span></div><br />I'm offering a 10% discount off the Amazon price of <i>Gods of Water and Air </i>during September. Write to me if you want one!<br /><br />