The Quiet Birth of Verse

 

Not in the noise does poetry rise,
Nor in the rush where impulse lies,
But in the hush when echoes rest,
And restless thoughts return to nest.
For feelings fierce, once wild and deep,
Do not forever rage or leap 
They wander through the storm of day,
Then, softened, find a gentler way.
The heart once struck by sudden flame,
By joy, by grief, by love, by shame,
Cannot at once its truth declare,
It needs the stillness of repair.
So time withdraws the sharpened sting,
And silence lets the spirit sing.
What once was loud becomes refined,
A clearer voice, a calmer mind.
Then memory, like a patient stream,
Returns to touch the waking dream,
Not as it was raw, unrestrained,
But shaped, and sifted, and explained.
In tranquil thought, the past appears,
No longer blurred by present tears.
The pain is felt, yet gently held,
The chaos calmed, the storm dispelled.
And there within that quiet space,
Emotion finds its truest place.
No longer shouting to be heard,
But breathing softly into word.
So poetry is not the cry,
But what remains when storms pass by.
The overflow, yet tempered, true 
A soul at rest, remembering through.