I'm a One Draft Poet

Once, long ago, when I was a pre-med student, I took two poetry elective classes to lighten the burden of my science, chemistry, math and biology classes. I was fortunate enough to be taught by a famous poet. During a visit to his office hours, he told me that I needed a vice in order to hone my craft and that also I needed to let a little of the outside world in. I never told him that the poems just came to me in one piece and I would furiously try to scribble them down before they disappeared. I have always loved words since I was a young child and discovered e.e. cummings, Hugh Prather and my favorite, Zbigniew Herbert. I could never work a poem, mess with it's personality, tweak it into something else. Every poem I have ever written is a one drafter, no tinkering, no meddling- just a regurgitation of words. I haven't written in awhile, but the other night I was revisited by my muse. A poem appeared in it's entirety and demanded to be scribbled down. At 4AM, I scribbled this in my textbook, since I lacked paper, and it was on my night table.

It's for my little one:

I watch, little one,
as you run ahead of me
on this road
bathed
in the evening's last
rays of sun

I laugh, little one,
at your sticky, apple kisses
peppering my face
and arms

I sigh, little one,
as I gather up these moments
to taste another time
when my eyes
look back at me
from your woman's face
and this childhood
is long gone

when you no longer
crawl into my lap
to be rocked
and soothed with song

I know, little one,
as I gather these moments
greedily
that you are a rare gift from God
that my one cell
mixed with one of your father's
in an alchemy
of love
and Grace from God
earning me the right
to be called
mother.