Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

Visions from My Office Window by Ruth Stone

Among the students between the buildings,
the colors of their clothes is a mirage of tulips.
The lash of hot and cold upstate
New York mountain weather;
April splinters like an ice palace.
And among them, one who looks 
like a Sicilian widow; is this a new beginning
or is she bringing food for her daughter?
If so, the daughter will likely spurn it.
“Mama,” she’ll say, “go back to the kitchen.
Leave me alone.”  The widow shrugs and passes 
with the stream of students.  She is
very likely a student herself just trying on
one of her multiple guises, the black cape,
the wrapped shawl; hurrying by herself
prematurely old, carrying a basket of produce,
her eyes deep-set and dark as olives.

~ from In the Next Galaxy (Copper Canyon Press 2004)