daily dose

Poetry should be a part of every day.

Now that I think about it, every day is poetry. Every day is its own poem in the anthology called a lifetime. Or rather, every day is a single syllable, and we string them together in careful heptameter because that is what the first and great poet did, when he created the marvelous first verse of creation. I do not know how long my poem will be; instead, I go on painstakingly composing it--day by day, syllable by syllable--and some days it seems to write itself. Call it inspiration, call it revelation, call it chance, call it fate. Say it comes from the Muse, from God, from invisible electrical impulses, from a far-away intangible force somewhere in the cosmos. Whatever it is, it is more felt than seen, although it can indeed sometimes be seen, or heard, or even smelt. And it is everlasting and inexhaustible, if only we can figure out how to tap it and to convert it into a form that is more readily comprehensible by human intelligence. That is, I believe, where the poets come in. And that is why our dear friend Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer said that "siempre habrá poesía" (there will always be poetry).

And so we ought to read a bit of poetry every day. Aloud whenever possible. If we are aspiring poets ourselves, we do it to learn from the masters. If we shy away from our own poetic possibilities, we do it to learn from the masters. They have so much to teach us, if only we will take the time to listen.