'It well may be
the very nature of creativity,'
So 'n So himself surmises
in Mockingbird
addressing that You never 
again wrote another book . . . 

for how could anyone live
up to writing a second
as true and good as the first
that skyrocketed further
than even You
could have imagined,
monstrous and brilliant.

Such is the nature of creativity
just now sitting here
penning this out from
a moment ago when outside
absorbing third shift sun rations
which brought to illumination
the neighbors' children's
Halloween leftover ghosts,
twelve little boos
flitting to /n fro
various feet above
from a Yopine's tree limbs.

Such is the nature of creativity
You agreed it was easier to forgive
Yourelf for not publishing a second,
for not living up to such
expectations where others
were concerned . . . You went out
and stayed at the top, as few others
have been able to do,
                                         yet
in this layered heart there's
rumor, suspicion that you write . . . 
maybe not every day or pages
on end,
                                         still papers
discoursing private opinions
would seem tantalizing where
others are concerned,
                                         but here
this poet superstitiously believes
that perhaps you'll have left
some trunk of papers
ir organized folders or cloth wraps
or small poems in book margins,
shuffled between
the books' pages
throughout your private collection
because to think otherwise
seems perverted, queer
that such would be
the nature of your creativity.

But could it be
the nature of creativity 
to abort itself every night
into a fireplace, a furnace,
a backyard hearth or kiln
the writings of each week,
a month, or the year?

. . . could it have been or be
such a powerful force
as to be that which 
consumes fully & completely
without leaving so much
as an ashy residue?