This past Sunday evening, my friend Julie and I adventured to The Word Barn in Exeter, NH for a reading by the poets Ben Moeller-Gaa, William O’Daly, and JS Graustein. It was a privilege to meet the poets before the reading, shake their hands, and share how I’ve been experiencing a bit of a writing dry spell of late (and they understood!). Such a gracious and renewing evening, which opened up a small crack in the writing dam, out of which streamed this short piece below.

A Bell in the Word Barn
Revelation at a Poetry Reading

A barn-full of words and whimsy,
wooden beams and beer –  the rooster
crows at just the moment
to save us all from drowning
in ourselves. We laugh
and I think: Poets are strange.
But then again, so are preachers
and politicians, all so sure
of their words, so sure