for Ben Mazer
Nature paints better than the painter
(strange cloud against a sunset sky)
but the poet writes poetry alone.
Nothing helps the poet write poetry
(motorcycle whine, slang, laughter)
or hurries into consciousness an idea
(no one has a poetic idea that’s deep enough).
Poetry is the only permanence.
Things erode. And the painting
of those things is a thing.
Air cannot get at poetry; nothing eats it.
Poetry surrenders to nothing.
But the poet is lonely.
Speaking crowds don’t write poems.
Every poet has an anguished stare.
When all the things are gone, he wonders,
will the ideas of them live?
And where?