Poetry Is A Sort Of

The Heart Hid Still In The Dark, Hard As The Philosophers Stone.

There Was Earth Inside Them, And They Dug.

A Poem, Being An Instance Of Language, Hence Essentially Dialogue, May Be A Letter In A Bottle Thrown Out To The Sea With The-surely Not Always Strong-hope That It May Somehow Wash Up Somewhere, Perhaps On The Shoreline Of The Heart. In This Way, Too, Poems Are En Route: They Are Headed Towards. Toward What? Toward Something Open, Inhabitable, An Approachable You, Perhaps, An Approachable Reality. Such Realities Are, I Think, At Stake In A Poem.

Each Arrow You Shoot Off Carries Its Own Target Into The Decidedly Secret Tangle

Only Truthful Hands Write True Poems. I Cannot See Any Basic Difference Between A Handshake And A Poem.