Poetry Thursday- Your Own Voice

As someone just taking baby steps into the world of writing, and particularly the world of poetry, this week's Poetry Thursday prompt made me throw up my hands (metaphorically speaking) and cry WHOA! Voice? I don't think I have a "voice" yet, at least not in the poetic sense. Not in the way that Mary Oliver has a voice, or Jane Kenyon, or Naomi Shihab Nye, some of the poets whose work I've been reading and enjoying. I spent most of the week wandering around thinking, "where is my voice?" and "how do I find it?" I had just about decided to post a poem from one of the poets mentioned above, as if to say, "I don't have a voice of my own, but how I wish I had one like this!"

But then, I heard something. Not a voice, really, but a tiny whisper. So, I have a poem of my own to offer after all.

You must know ~

I've been searching endlessly

for this voice of mine.

Perhaps it hides

beneath loads of laundry

and lists of chores,

notes from various people

(not friends)

who beg money or time from me.

Perhaps it's injured or frightened,

remembering a moment in the past

when it ventured cautiously

from behind it's safest shelter,

only to have me ~it's protector~

shove it hastily aside,

discount its worth,

continue blithely with

the truly important tasks

that fill my day ~

the dusting, the driving, the tidying up

of all the cobwebby corners

of my world.

I tell myself now

to sit quietly

and gently call its name,

coax it to me

with a promise

of fresh ink, blank paper

and

a full measure of my devotion.

There is more poetry here