But then you came

A poem for my editor

Mostly I feel like writing is about the grunt work 
like pushing an unwieldy piece of furniture
up a fearsome, unyielding mountain.
Until my fingers are aching 
And my brain is ready to check out for the week.

Here in the relentless turmoil of my emotions
On the fruitless plains of my psyche I dwell. 
Reaching out for the ever elusive analogy, 
the abstract articulation,
that delightful thing that they call Eloquence. 

But then you came, 
And I bared my soul to you
You held it in your hands like a tiny insignificant flame
And into it, you breathed life.

You retrieved my ramshackle tales from the depths of tedium. 
Written in a language that I do not yet fully know how to speak.
You saw potential, and you saw light.
You saw the thing that I was trying to say 
and you helped me to say it. Only better. 

So here is my acknowledgement, my gift to you.
You have turned the mediocrity of my words into prose,
you have helped me weave the rich tapestries I needed to clothe my stories. 
You have made them shine.