Carving Out the Measure of Devotion

Carving Out the Measure of Devotion

Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse  modern poem  contemporary poem

You hardly know the truth of passion till

You put it in the context of its doom.

It seems as hot as sun spots or the spill

Of lava like a roaring mountain’s bloom,

But when the passion thinks its death is near,

And judges its own nature in the light

Of that, the passion may seem more a smear

Than raw realities.  It knows its might,

And doesn’t.  Romeo does not know what

The audience in front of him can see.

To him the love seems huge but then the glut

Of it becomes a swallowed poison sea

When he gulps down that phial and Juliet

Stabs dagger point at watchers’ vast regret.