The poet writes in I
because she knows
no other language.

We is a continent,
& a poet must be
an island.

She is an inlet.
He is a peninsula.
They is the great engulfing sea.

The poet writes in I
as the clock
strikes on metal,

as the bee wing
flies on honey,
as trees are rooted
in the sky.

I is the language
of the poet's inner chantings:
a geography of sadness,

a metronome of pain,
a map of elevations
in the jungled heart.

© Erica Mann Jong

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