Ars Poetica
Poetry is the devil’s footprint,
the hummingbird’s needle.
It’s how you may outlive your life.
The first words stir
like the fanfare of the elevator, then
are swallowed up in the confusion of arrival.
You let down your guard, you’ve brought
only as much memory as you’ll need.
You’re listening for the cries of gulls,
your mother’s voice,
the directives of the wind
as there, crashing toward shore,
the pieces of ocean
reattach in the oncoming wave.
Poetry is where you were headed
while the world was pointing
in the opposite direction.
Poetry is a word that requires no reply,
a catalogue of itch, pain, air-hunger.
By means of it, you sense hatred
or the need to be touched.
For most of its existence
it is folded neatly inside the brain,
the part that makes us believe
we are human.
—Elaine Terranova