He regards her for a moment, his grey eyes thoughtful and intent. There is nothing demanding in that look, but only a deep consideration - whether of her or of the question, who can say? Both seem to him, in the moment, equally strange, and equally hard to entirely respond to.
"I'm not sure I can say," he admits, at length. "As long as I can remember, I have written. As long as I could read, and even before, I have taken joy in poetry. I cannot imagine that there was ever a time that I did start, or a world in which I do not write, at least in my own head." There is a hint of sheepishness in his smile, this time. "You should not ask such questions of a poet. You may get a poetic lack of answer."
That he is a poet, he has never doubted. Whether he is a good one may, perhaps, be a matter for debate: but, as he has said, he has written poetry for as long as he could write, and read it for as long as he had the ability, and if that does not make him in some way a poet, then what could? Besides, it is one thing that has never been denied of him, even if it has been spoken more often as insult than praise by some. A poet: a man with his head in the clouds, a man who looks for beauty in a world where there may be none and who seeks to make of himself something that no man could be, a man whose head is too full of words to leave room for bitter, cynical truth. He has often thought, even when it was spat at him in that way, that there were worse things to be.
He sips his coffee, and looks down at the notebook on the tabletop, a small frown creasing his brow. "I have never understood," he says, quietly, "how people can bear to live in a world without poetry. It must be such a bleak place."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-10-01 09:26 pm (UTC)"I'm not sure I can say," he admits, at length. "As long as I can remember, I have written. As long as I could read, and even before, I have taken joy in poetry. I cannot imagine that there was ever a time that I did start, or a world in which I do not write, at least in my own head." There is a hint of sheepishness in his smile, this time. "You should not ask such questions of a poet. You may get a poetic lack of answer."
That he is a poet, he has never doubted. Whether he is a good one may, perhaps, be a matter for debate: but, as he has said, he has written poetry for as long as he could write, and read it for as long as he had the ability, and if that does not make him in some way a poet, then what could? Besides, it is one thing that has never been denied of him, even if it has been spoken more often as insult than praise by some. A poet: a man with his head in the clouds, a man who looks for beauty in a world where there may be none and who seeks to make of himself something that no man could be, a man whose head is too full of words to leave room for bitter, cynical truth. He has often thought, even when it was spat at him in that way, that there were worse things to be.
He sips his coffee, and looks down at the notebook on the tabletop, a small frown creasing his brow. "I have never understood," he says, quietly, "how people can bear to live in a world without poetry. It must be such a bleak place."