What is a poem and who is a poet?
The heart, period.
Without restriction of meter, rhyme or metaphor,
It is the heart that speaks.
Not only speaks, but is heard.
The poet is one whose words
Not only are said, but heard.
Not only heard, but felt.
Not only felt, but acknowledged
With "yes, it is so."
Oh, how tedious the verbiage to truth,
Or at least to "yes."

Does the poet repeat himself?
Yes, but with alternation.
His identity knows and grows
But never loses his first insight
Which as a thread binds his
Thereafter with recognizable gold -
Unadulterated, undiluted,
Undiluted identification - A distant voice.

April 29th, 1981