Out of Emerson

Poetry repairs the decay of things
: the filaments of the flower

stand proud for all time
in the words of the poem

which creates a new self
standing apart from the poet

a ripeness of thought and feeling
detached and fearless and sleepless

and deathless that becomes fixed
in the heart of the reader

a clamorous song with a melody
that steeply ascends and leaps

in rough odes or seamless sonnets
that pierce into the ageless infinite

John Lyons