Occupations

Among other things
         poetry is an act of occupation
a marking out of the territory
         with words that establish
distances and times
         and within those unlimited boundaries
hopes and dreams and emotions
         and thoughts and doubts
what little is known
         and much less understood
within the cosmic melee
         and if there is a unifying centre
it lies at the point of necessary love
         it is an addressing of the world
of people and of words too
         such and such a phrase borrowed
from such and such a text
         poetry is a will and testament
to life’s texts and textures
         her eyes her hair her lips
her sensibility all marked up
         the summer’s day of her smile
her openness to the enactments
         of untold intimacies—poetry
an occupation
         in every sense of the word

John Lyons