For Gerrit
What is poetry? an image
in the mirror;
reflection from a broadside
pinned to the wall,
penned by a friend,
from where old feelings
old meanings arise;
relief from pain; the diligence of work.
Mysterious words upon a page in adolescence;
listening to poets read. What is poetry?
Breath, competence, success
or simply Eros.
“Four sides to every thing.”
The increase in electricity causes lights to flow.
Is it only light, or heat,
words ordered in a row.
Men or gods. I’ll never know
or try to know
more than the doing,
the flowing
rain upon the roof. That one hears,
and reveres
inside, away from the cold
within the house
where the heat
reminds one of what it is to be like
out in the cold
rushing over the field
mad,
Intelligence or emotion? language.
From Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners, edited by Joshua Beckman, CAConrad, and Robert Dewhurst © 2015 John Wieners Literary Trust, Raymond Foye, Administrator. Reprinted with the permission of The John Wieners Literary Trust.