Discovery

Jan Seale

June 19, 2022

I love finding a poem I’ve written, then 

committed to short-term memory loss,

thanks to the medial temporal lobe.

It’s there like a single earring, the mate 

saved on the promise that someday

a glint will show up at rug’s edge

and the two be reunited. Or like 

finding a friend’s letter dropped down 

under the mailbox, caught among 

little flowers, still with juicy details 

though the past is indeed over.

Be careful when finding a poem:

Avoid disgust, scowling, tut-tuts, blaming  

certain words, which of course can later 

be deftly exchanged for others. No hasty 

discard of an idea feared masquerading 

as original thought, which of course 

can later find its way home to its creator.

The subject itself: an amaryllis?

a neighbor’s dog? love unrequited? 

the violence of red? sunlight? 

blunder of the entire wide world?

Think how the poem desires to rise up,

to greet your editing pen. 

Receive it as a newborn baby, kissing

it all over, baptizing it, beginning

with only thanks for serendipity 

or happenstance, or both.

Jan Seale is a lifelong Texan. She is the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2012. She belongs to the Texas Folklore Society, the Poetry Society of Texas, the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers, and the Texas Institute of Letters.