Poem #13: We, the Poets
We, the Poets
If only to sustain this one verse, with the brooding seam,
with a free mind and an open heart, we become the men wading
rivers upstream, if only to be alive,
as we had never been before—I will bleed unto thee
this verse of purest faith.
A right word, the most daring challenge, this
truly resembles impossibility, for words swim as
infinite as the silken stars in the perpetual sky.
Irony sings when we believe heaven only resumes
when the darkest nights permeate and the stars
create needle holes for the dawn to peek through.
Conversing in colours, we paint the day with renewed
hands; behind walls of pearls, we speak with
fearless breath—for if the world shatters
and cleaves wide open, were my words the persecution,
or were they forged to save?
We, the pillars, will build nations of tongues
and claim this roof of sky ours, though we
cannot divide its waters.
We, the curtains, drawn back so the solemn
artistry may converge with brilliant life,
bleeding ink unto paper which can sting sharper
than stone lest we bleed from our hearts.
Discernment, unobtrusive friendship, oblivious
love unconditional, true eloquence—a mountain
of purses could never purchase these.
We could pay attention to every single moment,
but lose ourselves, and spend our hearts, our
lives, searching for who we were today.
We, the written, request that our words do not
liken to stains upon the paper, and if we lack humility, Eternity
is erased from our hearts, the solitary, pure vernacular, gone.
Such is life when I cannot grasp it, for I never will,
my hands always amongst words to peruse.
Had we the pride, our words would dribble, slither
to the floor, merely to depart while slipping on them
out the door.
We, the poets, are but withering grass,
our homes but valleys, our pens but epistolary
flowers fading; we are wrought of dust escorted by an unknown
whirlwind, but the height of our voices
upon paper– they sing.
These words were never our property, yet
beyond the clouds, beyond the waxing garment
of the earth, they stand as choirs.
But we, the dying, we satiate the crumbling towers of our heads
against the overwhelmingly sour;
we fulfill these words, to bequeath no emptiness in them.
There remains all the difficulty of those sparse of
Imagination—for they cannot see themselves think.
We write what we write, hope it hold truth, and no more,
our light rising in obscurity; instead of the thorn and brier
grows tall the myrtle tree.
We, ourselves, do we break ourselves down into
portraits of words, and live as life allows?
Among the smooth words of the stream is our portion,
along every sentence a railway to new stories to be told,
amongst every beast a dove laden with peace.
Death sounds like a desk, hoping we write away our years
upon one. Meanwhile, this is my stride,
walking away from thee, the worldly, from thee—tradition.
That this mirth might bloom the pigments of yielding amends,
that a kiss to Your folded hand, of which no other words have
been created, may speak for every time, every season.
But we, the afflicted, we are the embodiment of modesty,
of revelations of poetry stitched into our arms,
our tongues severed: we write what we cannot further say,
for we are the madmen convicted by the words writing our
world into motion.