! Remembering The Future

The Greeks said, those great Muses who civilise us, grace our dance of life, were once, before they were nine, just three; and before that, only one was named: and she was, Memory. Does that make poets just regurgitators of what’s already been oft said - and better, too, some would aver…? No, it’s more subtle than that; ask a poet: a poem that comes warm, hot, from the human heart demands a summary birth; won’t hang around while you go out to buy more toys and frills to hang around the cot… it is indeed, more like remembering: as if you step into a timeless place where all that’s needful is to remember what the future poem shall, will, have said.. write it down; and maybe sleep on it; when you wake, you may remember two lines somewhere which you’d forgotten, but know exactly where that is… That Muse of memory will then decide whether a poem that has a timeless birth, may have a timeless life... or not... How can a poet claim a poem as his, or hers, when such a Muse? and yet, so close at hand?