Why I Write...

I never can explain it quite

This need, it seems I have, to write…

But paper is a patient ear

No words are writ, it will not hear

It never assumes what is not

But simply listens to my thought

Here life's pleasures and sorrows spill

In whispers from a poet’s quill

I write to preserve moments past

Knowing ink’s measure will outlast

This transient, ephemeral shell

I write, for there is much to tell

But time is short and listeners rare

And spoken word is soon dead air

Thus I must write; a diary

Of thought engraved in poetry

I write because I love to read

To feel the passion mortal’s bleed

To thrill beneath their ageless thought

The mark of quill on parchment wrought

Of Tennyson, Longfellow, Frost

And countless throngs of voices lost

Had they not taken time to bare

With ink, the thoughts they longed to share

Tis no small thing to hold a pen

And spill heart-linings out to men

Of hope, of longing; these we summon

For mankind has this much in common

And with the written word we trace

The heartbeat of the human race

Manifested on a stage

In filament of ink and page

 

Tis no small thing; reaching to God

Seeking Him within my thought

Tis no small thing to contemplate

What to write; what to erase

…to paint in whispered ethereal art

Upon canvases of the heart

An earnest, resolute vocation

Generation to generation

…and so I write, not to become

A famous author, world-renowned

I write to touch the low-flung cloud

Or lonely souls lost in life’s crowd

I write; for it seems I cannot

Quell the vast ocean in my thought

And I am glad, so glad indeed

That others write, so I can read

© Janet Martin

My Homework for Writer's Unite is done!
Assignment: 200-300 words on Why I Write

Word Count;300 (phew!)

What are you doing? hubby asked a few nights ago when he called
I'm reading Treasure Valley, I replied. It was written in 1908 by Canadian author, Marian Keith.
Thank-you Marian,(although you were gone before I was born) for writing and sharing your beautiful, timeless perspective.