Say not that I have stolen them.
No more honor has a jeweler for a gem,
Than I for these lovely gentlemen.
Yet like gems prized from battered crown
Or corroded ring and set again, more –
Or less – tinselly glittering,
They beg new voices to frame or refine
Such traits their true authors might decline
To set free in exploration: whole treasuries
Of joy, glory, grief, desire –
Some years I’ve spent inside created minds
While my own tale-spinning, lax, unwinds.
Is this obsession or apprenticeship?
They have stolen me,
These earthbound angels, these spirits of fire.
A version of this poem was originally published here: