What is a Poem?

You know that feeling when you’ve got too much to do and you can’t imagine how you are going to pack it all in so to calm yourself, you count ahead to the next quiet day, which doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the near future but you tell yourself that you can make it through except then someone calls and there has been a change in plans which adds even more to your plate and on the inside, you feel yourself going ballistic but you try not to show it because it is not really their fault only now your head is pounding and you wonder what other basic necessities you can cut out in order to get it all done?

Yeah, its not that.

It is the opposite of that.
In fact,
a really good poem
is the antidote
to that.

Make a tight fist.
Hold it,
hold it,
hold it…
release.
Now look at
the palm of your hand.

That is a poem.

By Maria Brady-Smith
Photo by Mike Smith