In the Days Before April

In the days before poems, we asked the sky
what shall we do with all these bright, loose words?
what did we know in those innocent days
words running like streams around our ankles.

In the days before poems, we only knew
the pleasures of picking up the shiny,
the glittering word, the sparkling phrase
holding it lightly, letting it go free.

In those days before poems, when all the words
swam in the sky, sang in the night, and laughed
oh how they laughed in the long days and days
we breathed in their joy, stroked their shadows.

In the days before poems, showers of words,
blessed with words, frozen in words, killed by words
pressed words, fed words, mouthing the syllables
casting and tossing the words, we begin.

Thinking about April and NaPoWriMo