Energy

The energy to hold the pencil
and to make it move escapes me
and I stop, mid-sentence, syllables
and punctuation caught and held
in the vicinity of my elbow, stranded
while I close my eyes and find the will
to free them, releasing words onto
the paper while the background jazz
sings a lullaby. My lids could close
for hours, days. A week could pass
and then I would awaken, energized,
enthused, enraptured, captivated by
the words I wrote the week before.



(c) Ellen Gillette