Scott Vanya - One Poem

Right

When you stop
       being a poet
and start
       being a poem

The World
        hugs you
as if to say

        "Welcome home"

Speed limits look like
       a good idea:
All saying

          "Enjoy this moment
           as well as
           the next"

Daylight dapples
        across your hands
and face
       and dogs barking
are
       "yourself".

Just drifting off
        as if
someone else
         wore your
flesh.

And "to write"
         means
 
        "to be"

and

        "to be"

means

       "to love".

And all around
          are nothing
but sweet
        sounds
as words
        and
they all
        are true.

And it no longer
        matters if
you seek nor understand.

Just existing is enough.

And it no longer matters

whose hands write
        them, it,
        or
        us.

Just children's
       voices
filling up
       the emptiness
where joy
       will soon reside.

"forlorn" "abstract"
"real" "imaginary"
it is all
          chaff
          swept away
by the words
         of what you
once thought you were.

To sit to be
and smile with Grace
       and awe
       and wonder.

That is what it is
        once the poet goes
and all that is left
        is poem.

a poem.

All that is left
          is a poem.



Scott Vanya is an Austin, TX area poet. He has been writing for a long time and favors sharing his work at open mics where he performs extemporaneously and plays guitar. His work has appeared in Walt’s Corner, Manna, Perigee, Chicago Literary Review, Mobius, Cosmic Trend, Pitchfork, Romantics Quarterly, Artisan, Pegasus, The Neovictorian, and The Blind Man's Rainbow. He is author of poetry collections, Free for an Unlimited Time, Conduit's of the Sublime, and CarryAway Seeds. He operates Open Mics Austin, a blogsite that archives various Austin area open mics and performances.