He sees white sea gulls
fluttering above him.
Like sheets of poetry.
If he could catch them
he would not have to write
his own poems.
He could read their lines,
like songs singing in seashells.
People would be amazed
and ask where the words
came from,
and in innocence he would say,
I read them from pages of the sky
that fell on me.
And they would shake their heads
and exclaim,
he is crazy,
but then he is a poet.
The poems are beautiful,
they would tell him,
go back and find some more
for our journals and letters,
poems to recite at birthdays
and graves.
And the child would look at them
and say to himself,
they are crazy,
but they are big,
and I do not understand everything
they say.
And he would run off
and catch poems flying in the air,
to fall into his heart’s imagination,
and cry
as he read them in joy and happiness.