It’s not that I came late to poetry;
Rather I abandoned it for years
And then repented.
I was too busy trying to define myself
As scholar, worker, husband, father,
To make time for rhyme.
Although I had a song to sing,
I refused to sing it
Unless challenged by another.
Yet poetry kept creeping in.
First a friend, a preacher,
Whose poetry was rough around the edges,
Yet pulsed with passion, thought, and beauty of expression.
More recently a nephew (whose own obsession
Drives him to almost constant writing)
Posed the question, why not?
I had no ready answer, so I did;
And now, it seems, I cannot stop.
©2003 John I. Blair
