Poems

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit:

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb;

Silent as a sleeve-work stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs;

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees -

Leaving as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind.

A poem should be equal to
Not true.

For all the history of grief
As empty doorway and a maple leaf;

For love
The learning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean,
But be.

"Ars Poetica" ~ Archibald Mac Leish