Where do poems come from?

Words that are etched into my friend, Max's, headstone at his grave. "From My Heart" is the title of the poem he wrote and shared before he died from cancer on June 6th, 1999.

While in college at the University of South Dakota I was enrolled in a Creative Writing course and I recall a moment talking with the professor about two poems I had written. As we were both looking at the poems I held in my hands she told me that she could clearly see that I must have worked harder on one than the other. I shook my head and told her she was mistaken. The poem that she thought I had spent the most time on was actually the one that had "just come to me." I wrote it in a matter of minutes and its appearance on the page felt effortless. On the other hand, the other poem was the one I had struggled with and it felt incomplete. I don't recall either of the poems, only what the professor had said about them and her opinion has stayed with me. I find it interesting that a college Creative Writing professor would not be aware of how sometimes you can feel "in the flow," dance with the Muse, or experience a spark of creative insight where stories, ideas, or poems may just come to you, while other times you may experience nothing and feel total creative blockage. I just assumed this was common, intuitively known wisdom but perhaps it is not.

When I ponder how poems can sometimes just come to people, seemingly out of nowhere, this makes me think of two people from my life who, unfortunately, are no longer alive: a former high school friend, Max Beeners, and my grandpa, Ralph Wallin. Both of them had each shared a beautiful poem before they passed away that each of them said "just came to them." I find this so fascinating and worth pondering. Where do poems come from? On this website about Max there is a paragraph under a picture of his grave marker which has his poem etched into it that reads: A poem written by Max Beeners, who died of leukemia five years ago. The poem is inscribed on his grave marker. Max's mother, Carla, says he wrote the poem in a matter of minutes, telling her the words just came to him. 

Part of Max's poem etched into his headstone.

When I read his poem, each time I am blown away by the beauty of its visionary message. He was given a gift that was not only for him but anyone else who loved him or simply loves beautiful poems. While I lived in the dorms in college I kept his poem taped to my closet door because of how much it means to me. I feel he gifted me and others something, like a vision, to hold onto to help me better understand not only his death but my own, whenever it comes to greet me. When I read Max's poem, it is so hard to put into words, but I truly feel the presence of God in it and that it is not cheesy whatsoever to really believe that this poem came from Max's heart, the gateway to a Higher Power. I like to imagine that Max truly had conversations with Jesus before he passed away, like his poem describes. Maybe the conversations were in his dreams or perhaps in a waking vision? I like the mystery of it all and even the mystery of where the poem, not simply the words, came from. I see it as one thing, not just a sequence of words strung together. I perceive it how one could look at a painting, as the entire image. I am guessing the words came to him, perhaps one by one, but in totality it was one thing that came to him---a beautiful poem. It beholds a vision and the same time it is transparent to the transcendent. I simply love it and I am comforted by his message where he says, "Some day soon you will walk the path and see, That leaving this earth is all a part of a Victory, And when God needs you above and not on earth anymore, I will be waiting for you in the gateway of heaven's door." I believe the gateway he is referring to can be found in the title of his poem. 

The other person in my life who shared a poem that "came to him" sometime before he died is my Grandpa Ralph Wallin. I was not made aware of his poem until after he had passed away, however. The first time I became aware of his poem was when I received his funeral announcement. It was printed on the inside of it. Sometime after his death I followed my curiosity which led me to reading his online obituary and messages people had shared in his Guestbook. It was by reading the messages that I discovered a message from his friend, Jeff Kroon, whom I had never met or heard of before. Jeff shared in his message that:

One day when Ralph was walking around his pond, these words came to him:

I heard the wind blow,
Watched a tree grow,
Felt the rain,
Smelled the pine,
Tasted Life.

He shared this poem with me and made me promise that I would never tell anyone that he had wrote this until his death. I love you Ralph. You will be missed."

My grandpa's gravestone with his poem etched into it.

Now that I think of it, these two people who had been in my life both also have their poems, that came to them, etched into their gravestones. It is very cool to realize this as well. What makes it all even more special and mysterious is that I found out that Jeff Kroon just so happens to be the uncle to another friend from high school, Nick, who was one of Max Beener's closest friends. The weaving of synchronicity is amazing to me.

I learned that Jeff is the uncle to my friend by contacting him to not only ask him if he was related to Nick but to also ask him more about his friendship with my Grandpa. Jeff had known my Grandpa Ralph very well and knows the pond that helped to inspire his poem, especially because he now lives on the land that he had bought from my Grandpa which is where this pond resides. Gratefully, when I asked Jeff if I could visit this pond, he said yes. It was a beautiful moment to see it in person but also to hear more about their friendship. I felt like I was seeing my Grandpa in a whole new light through the vision of his poem.

The pond, where my grandpa's poem came to him. This pond and land is now owned by Jeff.

My Grandpa's poem is simple yet so profound. I like that it is about the five senses and yet it also embodies a kind of "sixth sense" which is about sensing something seemingly unseen and beyond what can be viewed as "normal" perception. I feel that his poem points to where it came from, if only we can see where that is. I like to imagine that his poem, like Max's, came from his heart. There my Grandpa was, in solitude by his pond surrounded by the beauty of nature, likely feeling so much connection as the nature lover he was, and then the poem came to him. To me, I don't think that he was not caught up in his mind when the words came to him. I like to imagine that he was connected to his heart and something bigger than himself which reveals itself in nature, the visible face of God.

This quote that I discovered on a sign at the Mary Jo Arboretum in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where I live and like to frequently frolic embodies an answer, I feel, to the question, "Where do poems come from?"