what is poetry?
you know how, when you’re a young kid, your parents take you to visit a lake, and you’re doing all that fun young kid stuff like cannonballs off the dock, digging your toes into the mud, pretending to be a mermaid or a manatee or submarine captain? when suddenly the clouds that had covered the sun move aside, and the surface of the lake is touched everywhere with bright gold flecks of light, and you stop what you’re doing to stare in awe at something you’d never realized before was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful? and the moment is gone as quick as it came, you’re right back to splashing water at one of your siblings, but that night, after showers and dinner and climbing into bed, just before you fall asleep, the image of the sun-kissed lake returns to you, hazy with your almost-dreaming but still so warm and striking? poetry is the written act of recognizing the way the light touches the water and the way that you looking at this changes you
