Wednesday Word: Poetry

Happy National Poetry Month!

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
Carl Sandburg

What is poetry? This is a question each poet has to answer while writing a poem. Every poet has a different answer and the answer changes with each poem. I can answer this question from my point of view, but I cannot answer it from the point of view of another poet.

Poetry a bird
singing in the Tree of Life
proclaiming sunrise.

Today, at this moment in time, I visualize poetry as a bird nesting in the boughs of the Tree of Life. I see poetry as a nightingale announcing the approach of dawn, as it raises its song into the air.

Yesterday's poems
a wind blowing through palm fronds
scattering laughter.

On Tuesday, March 31, the wind started to blow. It scattered little alone the curbs and blew through the boughs of olive, pine, or oak trees. It caused the flag in front of the apartment building to wave and it move palm fronds both living and dead. Yesterday, the wind generated poems, so yesterday poetry was a wind.

Tomorrow's poems
generated by birdsong
or an unknown wind

I do not know what will generate the poems I write tomorrow. The only thing I am sure of is that I will write poems. Since I have an appointment with my optometrist I might write a poem while sitting in the waiting room. I am also going to the grocery store tomorrow, so I may write one about that experience after I get home.

Poetry is food
feeding humanity's soul
with stanza and line