My “trick” to doing these is to search for a key word—for this poem, my word was consolation—which got me about thirty or forty poems that either had that word in the title or in the poem itself. I had a very general idea of what I wanted, and chose lines that sort of struck a chord.

When I find a line that really resonates, a certain phrase or image, sometimes that leads me to choose lines from other poets with a similar theme. In this case, water led to stream which lead to sailing in the first stanza.

So I have a vague idea, and I let it blossom as I work on it.