If you listen carefully until the silence tugs
At heartstrings,
Or just whispers to the sky in confidence,
With patience, you may hear the sorrow,
Feel exhilaration
As it trickles through the veins of all posterity.
A certain segment of the circus we call
History
Has been assigned the task of keeping track
Of all those things that haven’t easy passage
To the concrete and sequential.
Love, and hurt, and loss, and endless worry.
Heartbreak, death, abandonment, betrayal;
These are life’s immutables,
Though they lend weight and mass to every
Cleansing breath.
No measurement exists to tally up
Collective sum of all the mortal coils.
So all this serves as an apology,
An affirmation for the poet’s craft.
His calling to give voice and record to
The essence of humanity’s parade.
Read any poem and feel the chill of death,
The hollow song of absolute regret.
Or turn the volume up and hear the bass -
Anticipation warming up the blood.
The heat of all the treble and the strings
May overwhelm the brass or tame the drums.
Something divine runs through the length of verse.
So that all poetry is just the same,
As any other while it stays distinct
And offers testimony to but one
While paying homage to the core of all
The family of man and woman too.