IV. Revision

IV. Revision

The first draft

usually arrives too quickly.

A sharp sentence.

A convincing anger.

A conclusion with good posture.

You believe it immediately.

Then later, while washing dishes

or driving home at dusk,

another thought enters quietly.

Not correction exactly.

Expansion.

The poem shifts shape.

The memory softens at the edges.

Someone you condemned

becomes briefly human again.

Revision is not failure.

It is attention continuing.

Writers know this.

The first line opens the door.

The real work begins afterward—

crossing things out,

hearing false notes,

following a smaller, truer sound

beneath the louder one.

The same thing happens internally.

Reaction speaks first.

Awareness arrives later

with a lantern,

walking slowly through the rooms

to see what else is there.