How do poems grow?

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.  (Robert Penn Warren)

 Writ

“Foole,” said my Muse to me, “Looke in thy heart and write.” – Sir Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella"

And so I searched, but all that I could see

to write about was this:  a vacant room

whose occupants once held a tenancy

of woodstream orchids, where an old perfume

clings to its quiet corners, knows my key

will turn, a frequent caller to a tomb

already ransacked, sifting through debris

only a fool like me would dare exhume.

I’ve served my warrant, Muse, and I am pleased

to tell you that I’ve found the smoking gun

you always knew was there. So I have seized

it, tagged and bagged it. Now my work is done.

This evidence I can at last impart –

the delicate forensics of the heart.

by Catherine Chandler (first published in The Chimaera, Spring 2008)