Stunned, Stung with Esthetic Tears
“When it reaches Alexandria, poetry comes in out of the sun,
retires to the library . . . And so it [poetry] survives in a world
where the vulgar tongue is not Greek.”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 19
At Florida Technological U
One afternoon I had some time to kill,
Or I was bored with working my way through
Some Library Science. Needing health’s pill
I headed for the shelves of poems doomed
To be unopened in the stacks and took
Anthologized poems down. Wonder loomed.
I read an ode by Keats. The cosmos shook.
My eyes sang out with tears and not because
Of sentiment inside those lines. The tears
Burned down my cheeks because of beauty’s laws.
The ode was like the music of the spheres.
Perfection in the crafting of each line,
And not words’ meanings, formed that white stone shrine.