Nancy L. Meek

READING, WRITING, AND A GIFT OF IT

Poetry is declining into a subculture of specialists,
Drawn to universities by necessity,
Trapped in a “Catch-22”.
The poets must be to “poet”
And the teachers to “teach”,
Not how to write,
But read…
The inspired works from a God-given talent.
Those compelled
Toward the profession of poetry,
In bettering their gift,
Should look toward heaven for the divine power
And not…
To the structured lessons
On how to write creatively
From someone who has abandoned the gift
For the profit of men;
For to do so is to be the android,
Who…
Though well-versed on the aspects of writing,
Mimicking the pastoral “greats” gone before,
Still do not have
The ability to feel the muse
Pouring forth from his own heart…
For his heart is stone,
Or metal,
Anything…
But human and breakable.
Only God can bestow the true gift of creativity,
By His grace and power.
To seek the prize from any other source…
Is to manufacture one’s own god
And be doomed…
Floundering in a Dead Sea,
With no life found there.