WRITING POETRY IS …

Writing poetry is doing something you have never done before

the tools are off the shelf, and you have seen them all

Writing poetry is seeing a coffin; the child doesn’t know

what to make out of the clumsy wood

Girls are swinging under the big banyan tree

and women are winding yarn with their knees

Writing poetry is you mounting onto a seesaw

at the other end of which sits an invisible big fellow

Writing poetry is an inmate being let out to exercise

in the hole between heaven and earth, and in the scorching sun

Writing poetry is me at five catching turtles with my elder brother

who using a metal hook dragged out from a mud hole a twine of snakes

I still remember my shrill screams

Writing poetry is screaming in memory and heart pounding in reminiscing