Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was “Printmaking” (September 2016)

Inspiration
By Nancy Scott McBride

Some of my poems are inspired by
the remembered rhythms of
childhood verses and nursery rhymes,
of Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss.
Others come from a darker place and
speak of the stubbed toes, scraped knees
and torn hearts of growing up;
of Vietnam and atom bombs.
But the best ones seem
to visit me from beyond the earth
with all its sweetness and horror.
Like dreams or answered prayer
they wake me in the night and I must
rush to record their strange and striking
images before they evaporate.
At those times I am reminded of
the old Sufi poet who wrote:
“I am a hole in the flute that God plays.”