This poem is mine.  This poem is yours.

You may read these words 

and understand them.

You may dislike them, crumble them up

and lob them into the waste basket 

like a basket ball
or make them into an airplane
and fly them across the room.

You may decide to memorize them,

send them to friends,

or magnet them on your refrigerator.

Poems become our thoughts -
the partnering, the square dance,
the ballet of words --

about the places where we walk
and places where we have never been,
the people we love,

death, life and birth,
about tears flowing, hurting,

the inability to cry,
beauty, ugliness and all in between,
trying till you sweat and apathy,
about flowers we water,

and trees we plant that become forests.

Maya Angelou wrote "Still I Rise" for the world.

Her poem is hers and is also mine. 

Eddie Vedder's "Society" belongs to society.

His song is his and is also yours.

A teacher's extraordinary teaching
belongs to herself, 

her students
and more than her students.
How far will her creativity
continue to create?
And who and what has
inspired her?

Even though I don't know you.

I've never seen you before.

Even though we have never spoken.

This poem is yours.  This poem is mine.

You may read these words

and understand them.

You may dislike them, crumble them up

and lob them into the waste basket 

or you may use them as some part of
your dance in creation.