Day 69

Then poetry found me.
I was a child sitting by a window.
I was watching rain fall and leaves fall.
No one who went by in cars or on foot
looked up, no one knew I was watching.
Poetry found me when I expected no one.
I was a child.  Poetry found me. 
There was a war and another war,
Someone we knew fell from the sky and died.
My mother spoke of it, not wanting me to hear.
The death of the old man in the upstairs apartment
touched me, and what would happen to his cat.
After he died I think the cat died too.
Poetry found me. I was given words
about the old man, about the cat.  
Not yet about the war or the other war
but that came later, was being held for me
like books at the library I’d requested
that were waiting for me at the desk,
Would be given to me whenever I could come.