And What Of Poetry?

And What of Poetry?

And what of poetry?
Can it be said, should it be said —
it is nearly a lost art?

You have to keep it up
purpose-obsessed not quite.
You have to endure

meaning-steered, goal galvanized?
again
perhaps not quite; yet that voice chides.

Sometimes it is but a murmur
much like rain
as it strikes and joins a puddle or that tinkle over stone, down,
down,

and against all odds –
like a mother salmon
who must resist the flow – you must give birth –

and here you are
and here it is.

Underground Turtles