The Word Poem by James Mills

Tabernacled in his nightime
abode, the old man, recites some
poetry he learned by heart when
he’d yet to find a taste for rum
and lived amongst those sober men
who’d set aside their call for rhyme.

Word-perfect, though a little slurred,
lines learned for the sake of learning,
fill the shack in a rum-bass tone.
With faint light of peace returning,
solitary, but not alone,
he becomes light, becomes the word.