Growing Pains

The hardest thing after writing, it seems,

is to let a poem hang,

just hang there on the line . . .

waiting  . . . waiting hard to be read . . .

and sometimes it hurts,

hurts far too much,

to see it hanging there;

and I must seize back my poems --

mine!  all mine!  please don't hurt them! --

but, then, how does one hurt a poem?

Ah,

one fails to read it!

So, although it hurts,

I put the poems back . . .

back . . . back into view,

because I see

(and I've seen this before but then I've forgotten)

that poems live, breathe, and sing

to be read!

And I understand now that my poems,

like children whom we cannot spare all suffering

and struggle in life,

are actually willing

to wait.