All poetry comes from flooding

All poetry comes from flooding.
They say this in a desert tribe
that values poets above all others
and knows what the Celt in my blood knows.
I hear this as I listen to the waves crash
against the lake shore in a northern land
that does not thirst for water.

I remember lying in a house of darkness
with a stone wheel on my belly
waiting for the words of new songs 
to rise with unstoppable power
bursting the dams of calculation.

I think of the Inuit who flames like candle
and sees through the obvious world
with shaman light, the one who told me
how his people would lie in the big house
in the dark waiting for fresh words to burst
to call the whales and please the Sea Mother.

I think of you, who bring a surge of desire

that must take form beyond our joy

breaking wave upon wave from 

inner islands into a larger world.

North Hero Island, Lughnasadh 2013