The Poem That Waits Outside The Words Poem by Shalom Freedman

THE POEM THAT WAITS OUTSIDE THE WORDS

(After reading Cynthia Ozick’s criticism of Harold Bloom’s ‘Daemon Sublime’)

The poem that waits outside the words
And begins inside them
Is like all the mysteries
Unknowable in itself

The poem that waits outside the words
And has its own fierce energy
Cannot be reduced to a line- by- line sublime

Somewhere elsewhere
There is a Poetry
I cannot reach
And do not feel

Why God has given me
My own stunted lines
I do not know

Someone else will have to take you
To Eternity