I WENT OUT WALKING

My poems had gotten so heavy

I went out walking in

the springtime woods and I

carried a sack    a nice blue

string bag    with pen clipped in-

to the netting    also this

little notebook    and a wider

one for long line poems    my

eyeglasses    a comb    I thought

what if the late March wind

attacks my gray and tangled hair

             just then another poet

             crossed my path    his backpack

             already fat with poems and

             a pen in his teeth