Hidden Things

Hidden Things

I.
Yesterday I was with two fifteen year old girls
and our conversation turned to dreaming.
They told me they wished
we could build a secret room:
A place they could come
whenever they were in need.
Like the youth room, I asked.
No, more sacred.
The church sanctuary, I offered.
No, a room of our own, they answered,
sounding strangely like Virginia Woolf
A name they would not know if I said it.
But with longing worthy
of any creative genius they insisted:

We want a place where
no one could find us.

II.
I once heard the poet Mary Oliver
explain that she hides
pencils in the woods and fields
of Massachusetts--
Just in case inspiration should strike
when she was empty handed.

A world away on the West Coast
when I go walking I feel myself
secretly hoping to find
one of her hidden pencils.
Geographically impossible, I know.
But still, I look for hidden things
to help me feel less empty-handed.