Poetry in the Present Tense
March 22, 2020

    We're just feeling our way along here, folks.  The poet Billy Collins says that's what poetry is like; you just "feel the walls for a light switch."  So we're living in poetic times.  These times are the stuff poetry's made of.  So today, I try my hand at it:

 * * *

 We don't know all the answers.  I don't.  Do you? 
 I suspect not.  We're all just feeling this out.

 There's a lot we won't get right,
 at least not the first time around. 
 And there's a chance – there's always a chance –
 we won't get a second time around.

 Or maybe that's the thing that's guaranteed.
 I don't know.  I'm just feeling this out.

 I know there's a lot I haven't gotten right,
 Even on the seventeenth, or seventieth, or seven hundredth try. 
 I've had a lot of chances.
 I suspect you have too.

 But can we blame ourselves?
 Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  We've just been feeling this out, after all.

 Maybe the difference is now we know it.
 Maybe now we take this chance
 to stop pretending we have all the answers.
 Maybe now we feel our way along.