I wanted to write a poem.
One about getting older & wiser.

I wanted to write one about my wife and my kids and what life was like-
for those of us climbing the hill of 30 years.

I wanted to feel something that I
hadn’t felt in a while. To show them…
that they could too.

I called and called, but Nobody answered.
You know me. Pithy. Albatross.
I got sad poems.
I got angry poems.
I got silly poems about baby bubble bath time, and I got poems that started well but ended up all wrong.

Then, at the end of it all. I wrote this:

When the words started to fall-
they came like the rain in sheets outside of my broken windowpane.

The computer hummed.
The hallway lights were still dark.
Things were supposed to be peaceful.

They crashed down. Violently. Suddenly. Mercilessly.
They bore holes through the sagging pages.
They wet the earth below.

They fell eternally and pooled and pooled forever.
The bell rang. The children came running.

A spill of tears marrying the coffee cup ring on my desk.

Mykel Townsend teaches English Language Arts at Okoboji High School in Milford, Iowa. He wrote this poem to submit to his school’s Literary and Art Magazine. This poem is a reminder to himself and all of us that art and especially poetry can come when we least expect it.