How Poems Are Made: A Discredited View
Letting go
in order to hold on
I gradually understand
how poems are made.
There is a place the fear must go.
There is a place the choice must go.
There is a place the loss must go.
The leftover love.
The love that spills out
of the too full cup
and runs and hides
its too full self
in shame.
I gradually comprehend
how poems are made.
To the upbeat flight of memories.
The flagged beats of the running
heart.
I understand how poems are made.
They are the tears
that season the smile.
The stiff-neck laughter
that crowds the throat.
The leftover love.
I know how poems are made.
There is a place the loss must go.
There is a place the gain must go.
The leftover love.
by Alice Walker
from Her Blue Body Everything We Know
Harvest Books, 1996