Wendy Boatright

Poetry Draft 3

23 June 2009

I Surrender

Who am I to scribble

my thoughts and feelings

when so many writers

have struck first and more deftly?

Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life”

fortifies my very soul, arming me

with a “heart for any fate”

to confront life’s daily strife.

Auden weeps with me

when I read his “Funeral Blues.”

What joy can come now

from useless stars, unwanted oceans?

Frost journeys with me

down “The Road not Taken,”

an unpopular path, wanting wear,

providing potential for distinction.

Bradstreet effuses her love and mine

of spouses prized more than gold.

“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

a debt of immeasurable adulation I owe.

Hughes warns me through “Dreams”

to hold tight to my own aspirations.

Life without hope, desire, or aim

transforms to a cold, desolate wasteland.

Dickinson illustrates for me

colorful scenes of amethyst, gray, and yellow.

“I’ll tell you how the Sun rose,” she whispers

as ribbons of Sun’s rays rise and slip away.

Surrender, I must, to the masters

whose verses are clear and timeless.

Emptiness reigns within me, and

my words fall as useless chaff.