! ! This One For Hanque With Thanks

All around the world, poems are talking among themselves when the books are shut, when the computers are switched off, when old-fashioned poets put down chewed pencils, sucked ballpens, lips a little stained with the flavour of ink that’s washable or permanent; poems talking among themselves in that language that poems understand, that poets seek to write; poems murmuring, complaining, sometimes shouting desperately, who are these people who have dared to speak our language? What is their right and reason? When did they arise? Where did they get their ideas? Why do they even try? How do they hope to improve on this? What is a poet, anyway? The tumult of their languages, the babel of upraised voices speaking, though, with that unutterable beauty of that sound which can really act, can change the world of change, can touch the heart for lifetimes, melts a heart of stone, brings tears to eyes needful of tears, opens clouds to blue sky and to sunlight, watches angels as they ascend and descend, speaks of, speaks, the unknown, formless, eternal, ever present – the tumult dies down; in the silence and the stillness, only the pure sound of sound itself; and in that sound the absolution: forgive them, O Muse of Poetry: they know not what they do.. yet in their hearts, they know what must be said. The pain, exquisite; found worthy; loved.