Advice for a Young Poet

                                    for Lilly

Write in dream states when first

you wake to the early caw

of crows that seem not you

yet not the other.

Write when you're tired, in love,

or so hungry you could reach

out your spoon for a bite of sun.

Write to an orange, to a cat,

to the loneliness of street sweepers,

to the days you're lost in stations

where the ticket window says

            Closed.

Write when you're young

in an old town, or old in a young one.

Write on hatbands, dried leaves

and across the lifeline

on the palm of your hand.

Write for outcasts, scapegoats

and for those who've left home

without breadcrumbs

for the way back.

Write for maps and watches

for compasses in stars

for the pain of old loves

for the hope of the new.

Write for your first sip

of coffee in the morning.

Write for blue fields

and yellow kitchens.

Write for what's left

of the music here

in this precious museum.

 

            Ginger Williams has taught poetry to school children in the Three Village Schools for many years, at the Mills Pond House and at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in West Hills.. She is the designer and head judge of the Children's Contest (3-12) of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.. This poem is dedicated to Lilly, her daughter, “my most important student now teaching Poetry and Literature to High School Students. Teaching poetry is my passion.”