FOOT BY FOOT

   The measured way in which this verse proceeds
   Reflects my calm, incantatory plan
   To follow where the Muse’s calling leads,
   Discovering as I go all that I can.

   With such a methodology as this,
   I find I’m paradoxically more free
   Than free-verse makers with their hit-and-miss
   Inventing-as-they-go can ever be.

   For there’s implicit inspiration in
   The ancient rigmarole of beat and rhyme
   Pressing us into zones we’ve never been
   Even occasionally to the sublime.

        Though much of what I make may be hum-drum,
        In time, I think, a masterpiece will come.

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