With words together

Emerson was right
           : thought makes things
fit for use
           and Zukofsky echoed

There is no life
           without purpose
no exalted rose
           no winedark Aegean Sea
no beauty or truth
           no love

The poet’s task
           is to tell it as it is
to denounce tyranny
           to laud good governance

So Homer blindly sang
           of Helen’s beauty
and of the strength and wit
           of Ulysses and Dante
delivered Beatrice
           from hell’s depths

Kosmos means beauty :
            thoughts make a world
fit for use
           with words together
we make a life
           fit for love

John Lyons