The prompt for today challenged me to write a poem that recounts a creation myth and so, I thought I’d let you all in on the secret world of creating poems.

You see, each poem has a unique life form. You might think that I create poems, but actually more often than not, they create themselves, the words falling in to place with rhythm and order and beauty.

Writing poetry is an act of passion—writer and poem must come together in love and single-mindedness. I imagine if there were a mystical story of the creation of a poem, it might go something like this.

in the beginning: the birth of a poem

crisp cadence of sound bytes
dancing across the page;
marginal moments light
momentous mysteries 
marching on.

letters swirls like atoms
forming ionic bonds.
how i cannot fathom 
those molecular fronds
marching on.

yet unknown, the story
tumbles out in stages;
rolling rhymes unfolding,
memories outrageous 
marching on.

ideas shift and shape,
pulling without tether
yet binding all the same
bringing us together
marching on.

the joyous pain birthing 
small words that time sustains;
rejecting or rejoicing 
the simple small refrain 
marching on.

—a draft by Carla Jeanne Picklo Jordan 

What is your passion? What keeps you marching on?