​Chrissy Banks Poetry

Welcome 
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      And it was at that age . . . Poetry arrived
      in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
      it came from, from winter or a river.
      I don't know how or when . . . . . . . .
      there I was without a face
      and it touched me.
     
​      Pablo Neruda (from 'Poetry')

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Why Poetry?

Because there are questions and I want answers
and I want them to be mine
Because I want to travel to the centre of myself
to be the driver and the passenger sitting by the window watching
to make a map with words
Because there is something moving in a corner of my being
Because I want to catch it, hold it still and see what kind of animal it is
Because I want to speak to you
Because I want to speak to you without you interrupting
Because this is the only way or at least the best  
to tell you this specific, this important thing
Because I want to look and see
dances of light, big-bellied cloud, skein of cloud
skies of dove grey, cyan, violet, the way 
a face will stretch or crumple in surprise or disappointment
Because I want to look and then remember what I’ve seen
Because I want to step into the skin of this man, that child
unlike myself and come to know the ways that we are one
Because words make parcels of the chaos
Because love is faithful and enduring in black and white
Because I need the songs of rain and rusting leaves to match my grief
Because I want a torch for flashing out the funny edge of sadness
a mirror to reflect the world’s unseen
Because I want to say what can’t be spoken
Because the pen is quieter than the gun
can kiss as well as blast wide open
Because there’s too much everything 
Because I don’t know who I am without these words
Because I have to know
Because I have to