I got there strung out
on sleeplessness
and too much coffee.
I told him so,
saying I'd do my best,

and he said that was fine,
and giving me a glass
of water, led me to the glass
dining-room table, a stack
of papers and a pencil
waiting at each end.

He sat at one end,
I at the other,
and there we were.
My mind felt like a car
that revved and died,

but George proceeded calmly,
reading me the lines
he thought needed work.

My crippled mind gave me ideas,
and with nothing else to do
as time flicked by in the space,
the vast space between us,

I passed them on to George.
He considered each, tried it out,
sometimes used my word or phrase,
sometimes used it as a stepping-stone
to find his own.

George honored
the silence and the time,

and I began to, too.
I saw my mind,
that limping, hobbled bird,
could hop, then fly
as well as any.

Later, walking out the door,
well-fed by fires of concentration,
my mind and body both

flew from that perch
into a surprise
paradise newly created
while I'd been indoors,

my spirit intoxicated by
the liquor of the breeze,
eyes oozing
the honey of seeing.

Max Reif

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/working-on-a-poem-with-george/