A labour of love

Writing a poem is almost like a birthing process. Tremendously joyful and yet simultaneously painful. To know that something has been gestating within you and is now fully formed and knocking on the doors of your heart to get out. Those are the first pangs. But how does one find the words to give shape to something so ethereal, so ephemeral, so other-worldly. The soul does not easily translate into words. So then the labour starts. Some poems are short-laboured, some take days to give body to. To catch a fleeting feeling, to turn into phrase an ethereal thought, to solidify images that float ephemeral on the other side of consciousness. That is the labour of love.

And finishing a poem is always a joyous experience even though I sometimes put down the pen in exhaustion. But some dissatisfaction remains. Because words, no matter how cleverly woven and intricately embellished always fall short of the nebulous magnificence that was the original idea. But I like to think that somehow the soul speaks to the reader’s soul.