The Details of Poetry

The Details of Poetry

What is more gentle than a mother's kiss on her darling's brow?

What is more eloquent in silence than a young

Love's hand on yours, which you feel 'til now?

What is more articulate than a lover's tongue?

What is more alive than Spring when sprung?

"What is more serene than Cordelia's countenance?"

What is more instructive than a rueful romance?

What, but you, Poetry, who came in search of me,

From winter and the river and the hills you called me.

From the branches of the night among raging fires,

There you were without a face but my ardent desire

To submit to you coaxed away my new-found fear,

And my shaking soul shattering my sometime fear.

Thus I wrote the first faint line without

Substance; pure wisdom of a foolish lout.

By and by the heavens unfastened and opened,

Planets palpitating plantations, among them, I, a citizen

In that pure abyss of wheeling stars,

My heart broke loose until these hours.

With my pen, it is an amorous sojourn

In melodious water colours playing nocturnes

On you, Poetry, soul releaser, tear inducer

Catharsis bringer, love reformer.

"The star to every wandering bark"

Your whispering words are all I hark.

I stumble through restless dreams

And still my soulful light does gleam-

Past poets poesy of a woman's touch,

But me, for me worded graces are very much

Overwhelming forces, omnipotent deities,

A labyrinth more elusive than a love treatise.

Life is but a tragic play,

"A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way"

From pain's zenith to a man's good feet,

To take him there where death shall meet.

But you were not born to die, immortal nymph,

Whose words shall future a forgotten glimpse.

The stars, too, write odes above,

And together we sing at night:

If poetry be the food of love,

Then never shall I cease to write.