The Writer

You who seem to be born with a pen in your hand,
who hold it as second nature integral to yourself
even while using that same hand for other tasks,
you alone will understand obsession for expression.

You know the fervor which drives the playwright
and the otherworldly weltgeist where poets live;
you fully ken the force that made blind Borges dictate
and the despair of she whose bell lost her tongue.

Tell me, compadre, do the keys of your computer
serve as an unsatisfactory analogue to the comfort
of a stiff rod of ink-filled metal in your hand
spilling the seed of creation upon the page of life?

So it is that you my dearest boon, must sleep lightly
with pad of paper and instrument of life beside the bed
so that on waking from fantastic dream of inspiration
you capture gods’ words before the oracle passes beyond.