(The Quietest Room in the House)
After a protracted period
of reading uninspiring books which
could not seem to spark any fires
in my smoldering imagination
I was excited to see a new book
from a famous author who
I had been told long ago
had a style of writing that I seemed to mirror
though I remember having to admit
I had never heard of the man
and would only realize much later
the great honor in the comparison.
Rushing home with his new book,
I went directly to the quietest room in the house
where I knew I could quickly absorb his first few chapters
while flushing away all recently uninspiring poetry.
And so it began:
a beautiful cover, a touching dedication,
and a poem by the author as prolog; an interesting concept,
but the poem was two stanzas
about eating his morning’s breakfast
while staring out the kitchen window,
and it seemed undeserving
of its special page numbering
in lower case Roman numerals
and I thought
“Why would you start your book with something
that will disappoint everyone
before you get to the real numbers?”
Without an answer,
I continued.
First poem -
on pages starting with modern numbers
so as to stem the confusion and declare the real beginning -
was about his old dog
and I thought
“Well now, here’s something I can relate to”,
yet all he could muster was a nice simile
about his old dog’s snout being as white as a marshmallow
and even that felt like a cheap hit
slapped into right field on a pitch that years ago
would have been turned into a majestic home run
from one of the deadliest hitters in the game.
Overwhelmed with the realization
that the student would no longer find
inspiration from the teacher,
I left the quietest room in the house
and tried to disarm my disappointment
by remembering how his wonderful past works
had taught me the possibilities of the craft,
but I could not shake the image
that my hero had joined the rest of us
and become just another dazed poet
staggering to the breakfast table
in search of inspiration.
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