Ted Kooser, and today's effort

As is always the way with Poetry Month poems, here is one that is sort of a first draft, which I may or may not get back to. Looking for poems to read this evening, I ran across some Ted Kooser works. He apparently was diagnosed with cancer and just stopped writing. During his recuperation he was advised to walk each morning, and a friend and fellow-poet asked him to write him postcards each day after his walk. Kooser did, and those postcards eventually turned into a book of poems...Anyway, here goes...

Beneath the Carnival

I understand Ted Kooser

coming off a cancer diagnosis,

not writing.

Poetry demands

an inward /outward contortion:

difficult when your own body

is screaming insults in your ear. 

Bloated with the trivia of day,

wordless in this physical discord,

the required acrobatics fail.

Withdraw.

Stop. Beneath the carnival

tent of chaos, carefully swing  

in remembered arcs; cast off

the appurtenance of  the sick,

the body undependable;

swing gracefully above its demands,

suspended between clamorous earth

and indeterminate heaven;

swing again in your accustomed way,

catching inspiration by its heels,

and learn again to fly.