Some people get poetry and some never will. Those around me fall into the latter category. In fact, poetry goes right over their heads. Family and friends alike have asked me on more than one occasion why I love poetry. My answer always includes eight lines that were recited to me at a very young age.

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
and the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.

I was floored by the depth with which these eight lines spoke of the world. They gave me new eyes and a new understanding. They showed me what a handful of words really can do. They, like all poetry, speak a truth.

We always strive to qualify and quantify our every experience. That’s why we write and read. But it’s poetry that strips away the excess to unveil the foundation of who we are and who we can be.

such was a poet and shall be and is

who’ll solve the depths of horror to defend
a sunbeam’s architecture with his life:
and carve immortal jungles of despair
to hold a mountain’s heartbeat in his hand

~ “no man,if men are gods;but if gods must” by e.e. cummings

Poetry’s lyrical precision can dissect any subject to its very core.

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

~ “Success is counted sweetest” by Emily Dickinson

My aim, as a poet, is to do the same. To move you, the reader, enough that you take pause.

and when they die
a tear rolls down
a cheek
and joins
a smile on the face
of a young woman

~ “The Story of Old Women” by Joanna Trzeciak

I love poetry because it hands me the truth and asks nothing more of me then to take from it what I will.