Inspiration

would leap,
I had thought,
faithfully onto my shoulder
and consecrate my ear
with wild imaginings in regulated verse.

Instead
it meanders down the driveway at a dignified distance
on careful paws
stopping now for a chew of blade,
now to doze in the shade of the barn

or it bleats indignantly,
butting against the fence
of my preoccupations

or shifts under my toes like the scant sand
or prods my feet sharply like the gravel
of this road

or, as it drives by, 
waves politely from a beat-up pick-up
leaving me
in a shuffle of dust.



Cumberland Poetry Review 18.1 (Fall 1998)

copyright Sarah Schneewind 1998