Ode to a lost poem

There was a poem in my head,
Two days ago,
The mechanical pencil in my brain,
Pulled out a sheet of paper,
And wrote out line succeeded
By line, until the poem
Faced me, my gaze looked
Over it, and it grinned, born
And content. Once home,
Sitting at the computer,
I reached into the pits of my mind,
Looked for the poem, even lightened
Up my finger’s flashlight,
For an hour,
Then, gave up, and brought back my hand,
Flipping off the switch,
Letting the beam dissolve,
Knowing that I had left the poem,
Uncared for, in dangerous territory,
That it had surely fallen off some cliff,
And crumbled into separate letters
When it landed head first,
Onto the rocky ground,
The letters joining all the others,
Thoughts that had also wandered off this edge
Of Earth, and disappeared.
So I sat at my desk,
Regretting my loss, also
Wishing that I had taken the time
To bring a paper
Along.
-CS
2-19-10