Johnny Keats famously said
“If poetry comes not as naturally
as the leaves to a tree
it had better not come at all.”
I come before you today
to say it’s not like that.
Sometimes poetry comes
about as naturally as the truth
to the lips of a politician;
as readily as a ripe strawberry
to a volcanic wasteland;
as easily as sanity
in a roaring pandemic.
And sometimes
just sometimes
it’s all the better
for the effort.
