THE POET’S EYE
Maya Angelou would pronounce ‘poetry’
with each syllable given equal, gentle
weight, and the first two clear as a call, a soft
sonorousness as if water spoke.
***
There are few words in the English lexicon
with so many, diverse, Attic meanings
as ‘poet’: maker, inventor, composer,
speech writer, legislator, author:
images of workshops, and lecterns;
chambers with high ceilings and long windows;
the law’s austere and tempered modalities;
stanzas memorised then taught by rote;
strings of characters laid every way;
the declamations at gatherings,
or in the mind’s crowded, private silences.
***
Although partially obscured by leaves,
when it is dark enough, solar-powered lights,
strung across the Japanese cherry, switch on –
like fireflies, like paper lanterns soundless
on deep waters, floating, flickering, long, long
after we are sleeping.
Mary Clark
October 2, 2019Wonderful!
Alan Horne
March 22, 2021‘…as if water spoke.’ And the final verse is lovely, David.