it’s funny how you go out and find

poetry when you’re not even looking

for it you’re just living and breathing

and hearing and reading and it

forms like the skin on the can of

paint you left open too long,

and when you get really angry

because someone steals your car

and all that’s left to say goodbye to

are the glass shards on the pavement

you want to forge poetry

out of the steel of anger

but it’s way too cold to meld into words

and then you turn the corner onto

your street coming home from the

grocery store and you see the

U-Haul in front of your

friend’s house and your stomach

feels sick and you cry all the way

to your front door and miss the

rainbow the kids pointed out in the

sky and the tears wash away the

ink, carry words away in a river

and drown them before you can

fish them out and then when you finally

think you will be able to sleep and forget

you close your eyes and the poetry finds you.

I found this poem, “Found Poetry,”  tucked into an old day planner in a box in the garage.  All of these things happened to me in a very short span a long time ago, when my children were young and my life was hectic, when the only time I could read and write poetry was after everyone was asleep.  Upon reading this poem, the memories of our time living on Ward Circle swirl around me.   Finding it is like finding lost treasure– because with it, the Suzannah of the past, who spent her days taking care of children who were 5, 4, 3, and an infant, speaks to me now and says, You were paying attention.