if

If I knew how to save you,
I would.

I could
manifest myself in so many

forms,
you’d have trouble deciding

who I am.
Though you may know now:

moments
pass only as you count them

valuable,
in ways truly helping us… all.

. . . . .

Beautiful words. Talk to me about the formatting of that poem particularly.. . . . . .

Thank you. It just sort of came out like that on all its own. Sometimes poems do that. The first two lines came, I wanted to match would with could. Except for the first two lines — long and short — the other couplets are short and long, which create a certain sense of space. The short lines to me feel like bridges that connect long lines. Also, it feels like we drop off the ends of the long lines and land on the short ones, so there’s a kind of movement there. I’ve never written anything quite like this before. As I say, it just sort of flowed out all at once as it is. I keep having to re-read it to see what the poem says. And it seems to say a lot in really very few words. Came from the deep well, I guess. And one that others know and feel as well. How does the form and how do the words speak to you?