Poetry Seeks Radiance
(on a line misheard at a lecture)
Poetry seeks ravens
I thought he said,
catching a dark feather
from the gibbet birds,
their proof of poetry's
keen eye and murderous
merciless beak.
The only radiance here
is the shining bones
pecked clean, the purest
possible form. If this
is tumbled in its chains
we must reassemble
it with unflinching hands.
Joanna Boulter
Darlington UK
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