If I Were a Poet

One night when I was ten years old,
a spirit stood in my bedroom and said:
Tonight you will not sleep,
but you will wrestle until dawn with metaphors,
and for everything that was never sad before
you will cry until your soul is parched.
When you open your mouth,
songs in the tongues of angels will come forth.
Here is paper,
and here is a pen—
Now go and wake up the world.