The poetry left

…

Image by Kelly Sikkema, via Unsplash

The poetry left
and took with it so much joy.

Rain became an inconvenience,
sunset just a time of day,
long walks just trips from A to B,
the sea nothing but… well,
the sea.

The poetry left,
and it slammed the door shut.

I spend my nights waiting
by the silent phone
hoping poetry will ring
and beg me to come home.

I read a few more classics,
I watched a dozen movies,
I met a hundred strangers
but none of them
were poetry.

I worked for days
and days
and days
and days
but none of the work
was poetry, either.

So now, like a lost dog searching for home,
like little Hachi in that Richard Gere disaster,
I sit and wait for poetry to return home
to the point that I write about missing it
and that, itself, becomes the poem.