Commentary:

Have you ever had one of those moments where you find your pen making marks on the paper and you don’t know what it’s doing?

In the wee hours one November morning in 1977 I had just written the following poem, my grandmother having died at that time:

3 A.M.

3 O’clock in the morning.
It’s lonely and cold in the world.
The hour of death so they tell me
And sometimes I wish it were so.

© Margaret Hicks

I could fib and say “I was feeling desolate and these words conjured themselves up to describe ……” or “I was imagining the times I pick a blade of grass as I sit in a meadow in the sun and chew on it until the filthy taste penetrates and makes me feel sick” or “it was an idea that came to me when I thought of the old joke of the painting in white of a cow eating grass - white cow; in the snow; finished all the grass and moved on to next field”. Or I could have sat here for another aeon and come up with something really clever to say.

I didn’t really understand this poem until three years ago, when discussing it with a close friend. She put it into words that made sense, at last, and had understood it and identified with it straightaway. I wish she was here to write this for me. If I can paraphrase for her, it’s something like this:

You find a new idea; love; philosophy. You take it on board and learn everything you can about it, live it, breathe it, feel it deeply. Then, when you have totally devoured it and found it wasn’t as good or as fulfilling as you’d first believed, you turn away from it. You try to forget it, ignore it, move on. But it stays with you, follows you, haunts you. Its the nasty taste left in the mouth after eating something unpleasant; when the relationship turns sour; when the belief fades and the cracks begin to show.

I can only take a few words, throw them together and find a poem on the page. It’s up to the reader to fill in the gaps, pad out the phrases and find their own meaning. If it says something to you, great, we’ve both had a pleasurable experience. In prose I can take 16 pages to waffle around what I’m trying to express. In a poem I can get it down to its most precise rendition.

I used to look at this poem and conjure up images of the cow chewing the grass, perpetually; see the three stomachs of the cow, and so on. Now I look at the poem and feel the meaning behind the words. Thanks Jan.

I’m not a poet. I just blend together a few words and let others savour the taste. I just conjure up a few words and let others imagine the magic.

I’m not a poet.
Blend together a few words.
Savour the taste.
Conjure up a few words.
Imagine the magic.
You're a poet.

That last poem came out after looking at my last paragraph. The last line was added just now, as I was re-reading it!