Poetry god - with a small g

I was reading this weekend and something jumped off the page at me. A translation by Mlymori Asataro of the Japanese poet Ochi-Naobumi 1861-1903:

"When I wake up alone
at dead of night
and muse on verse-making,
Even I am god"

At the risk of sounding both sacrilegious or egocentric, (neither a condition I feel at home with) I do indeed feel that I have experienced this myself and can totally understand how other poets including the author, could grasp this concept. Yes, I have at times waken up in the dead of night with some creative birth pains crying to be released onto a page. I think most of us have all learned it best at these times to at least make some note of the thoughts least they be lost forever in the tangles of life the next morning.

Occasionally I have set about flushing out the thoughts into form on a page in the night. I may not be physically alone... Cathy asleep next to me in the bed, but I will ever so quietly (as you do not dare wake the Mrs.) pick up my journal an pen
(usually on the floor or stand next to the bed) and write by the dimmest of light from the nightstand. It is at these times I am that poet alone with creation. It is at these times even I (the poet)am/is god.


poetics