Poet next door

I'm creating a world where no one holds a grudge. 

And a government so well run that its people actually feel like they want to live longer, rather than shorter, lives.

I have to begin by imagining things that can't be imagined, like what it would be like to live in a world where no winners exist and, because there are no winners, there are no losers.

The doorbell rings. It's the boy poet-next-door with a long poem he's written full of hope. He wants me to read it, show him where it can be made better. 

I tell him that I'd be happy to read it, but that I'm not going to write it for him, that I no longer know what a poem is, that I only know what a poem is not. "There are some really nice pieces of language in your poem," I say to the boy, "and some things you might want to change."

We sit at the living room table together, re-creating his poem until it's all his own. 

Plaque by Maija WIlliams, (1936-2019), former director of The Berkeley Potters Studio, poet, artist, potter. Photo by author, Feburary 23, 2020, at the celebration of Maija's life in Berkeley.