The power of poetry
The energies of meaning
that power the poetry
in which sounds and sense
vie for our attention
in which nouns acquire
the emphatic thrust
of verbs of action
love and rose
and time and tide
all tied to the kinetics
that accumulate past
significances
and propel them
into the future
a horse for a kingdom
by any other name
and whether it is nobler
that the rich should steal
relentlessly from the poor
poetry that wades in
to lift the smokescreen
to tell it as it is :
to announce and to denounce
the felonies of greed and avarice
and the hard-heartedness that
would demean our neighbours
What molecules of water
perceived within
the heaving ocean !
On a sunswept day
years ago I have seen
trout leaping
in the crystal waters
of an Irish river
affirming in so doing
the endless bounty of life
and so of love and all the words
that bind us
John Lyons