Poetry composition is not fundamentally an intellectual, emotional, or physical process. It is the act of traveling in our imagination to the state where the poem already exists, complete, and clothing the pure beingness of the poem.

If we tune into that place sufficiently, the poem appears effortlessly. We do not have to create the poem, or work, or devise, or scheme.

To reach this state, I place my consciousness into an ultimately passive and ultimately active state. It is passive in the sense that I give myself totally to the creative flow. Yet this flow is alive and active (and so must I be) as I become a conscious part of it.

In the aspect of livingness, the poem and myself merge -- but not totally, for I still retain my individuality and my free will to express in particular ways or not to express at all.