Lights On. Nobody's Home.

The Wordsworth Effect by Joyce Sutphen


Is when you return to a place
and it's not nearly as amazing
as you once thought it was,

or when you remember how you felt
about something (or someone) but you know
you'll never feel that way again.

It's when you notice someone has turned
down the volume, and you realize
it was you; when you have the

suspicion that you've met the enemy
and you are it, or when you get
your best ideas from your sister's journal.

Is also-to be fair-the thing that enables
you to walk for miles and miles chanting to
yourself in iambic pentameter

and to travel through Europe with
only a clean shirt, a change of
underwear, a notebook and a pen.

And yes: is when you stretch out
on your couch and summon up ten thousand
daffodils, all dancing in the breeze.