Occasionally
We each one turn to poetry when we
Need visionary calm. We all then turn
Together when we need to sail a sea
Of deep share sorrow. When our eyeballs burn
With grief, we feel like one—when mourning brings
A nation and the world to staggered breath
(A princess crushed in Paris). Then verse sings
Our solidarity with her in death.
The agony is soothed, if not with calm,
Then with a mountain range of scenic length
That only poetry and song as the psalm
To her can offer up for needed strength.
And poetry is needed for our wars
Against our basest enemies. It soars.