Here and Listen by Sarah Windisch

**guest post by Sarah Windisch*

From up here on my soapbox

Where it’s clear that everyone

Is a musician

Artist

Dancer

Poet

It’s so easy for me to brush off

The fears you have as

Excuses:

What if someone hates it?

What if someone hates me?

What if it’s not very good?

What if it’s actually really good?

Poetry isn’t for me.

At least not the me you know…

And then:

Why does it have to be in verse?

I think rhyming is the worst.

Or maybe:

This free-verse stuff is just

Lazy

Prose.

I guess that maybe I need to

Hear AND

Listen,

But only if you

Slip off those shackles

And come

To

Play.