Weekly Poem: The Spring

October 10, 2013

By Robb Thomson

Like the way a spring seems
To rise, fresh, out of a silent earth,
So my words, once started,
Find their own way
From my equally silent depths.

I suppose the invisible machinery
Of my subconscious is involved,
But a poem is more than something
Stirred from darkly distorted memories of
My pasts.

It also has the aroma of fresh baking
About it, as if the raw materials
Of my past have been blended and cooked
Into something to delight my soul
As fresh bread does my palate.

The new thing in this bread is a yeast,
Which, kneaded with old unleavened yearnings,
Raises the poem to new forms of meaning
Not present before.

How does this yeast ﬁnd me, or I it,
For it trickles out of nowhere into the poem
“Just in time” from an ethereal
Place beyond my material brain,
As if some goddess chef
Were guiding my apprentice hand,

Leaving me astonished and awed
By the mystery of this spring
Rising sovereign and free
Within me

This piece was written by:

Robb Thomson

Robb Thomson grew up in El Paso, Texas during the mid 20’s to early 40’s of the last century. He was educated at the University of Chicago and at Syracuse University, where he received a PhD in Physics. He spent a career in research and teaching on the faculties of the University of Illinois (Urbana) and The State University of New York (Stony Brook) and at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Thomson lives in Santa Fe, NM, and writes poetry because, as the most powerful language we have, it is a joyful guide to one’s unfamiliar self, and an equally enlightening guide to the outside world we only thought we knew.

He has written one earlier book of poems, Arranging the Constellations published by Mercury Heartlink.