If You Don't Find It, No One Else Will
What I really want to give you today, besides a jar of blazing red tulips to last you through the rest of February, is a favorite poem. I've read so many good ones lately and this is among my best finds:
Tertön
For Yangzom
By Sarah Ruhl
There is a poem for you hiding in the cleft of a rock.
Water laps about its edges.
Written by no one, written just for you.
Its rhyme scheme is unimportant.
Its handwriting is weird.
It meets you where you live.
If you don’t find it no one else will.
So walk down to the water,
and put your hand in.
From ’44 Poems for You’. Copper Canyon Press, 2020
You might like to know that in Tibetan Buddhism, a Tertön is a finder of ancient hidden texts. This is a pretty good description of the poet's work, don't you think?
For some years I've been interested in what happens when I bring a deliberately receptive posture to my creative process. What happens when I dial back the effort and increase my sense of welcome toward "whatever wants to emerge"?
When I think of my writing process in terms of finding hidden things—things that only I can see or hear or feel—everything gets easier and lighter. Yes, I work hard at my craft, but so much of it feels as though it is given to me by forces and influences outside of myself, too.
If I keep my senses alert to the world around me I always find something interesting or notable to write about, and if I don't get distracted by thoughts about whether this has value to anyone else, I can have a pretty good time looking around for poems in the world. In this mode, I see myself simply as a scribe to what exists, without my having to invent "something from nothing," much less have an "idea."
We interact with the world and it gives us moments, words, feelings, and stories, all of which make us want to write. We are writers if that is how we respond to being alive.
So write.
You are not alone. You can collaborate with whatever surrounds you where you are, in this moment. You can do this in your own voice. Its meaning and significance will be revealed to you in time.
You can do this over and over and become a better writer the longer you practice.
Some of us are very happy to do all of this on our own, out of sight. Others need some community and conversations along the way. I enjoy both of these ways of being a writer in the world.
How about you?
—Holly Wren Spaulding, February 2023