The Poem That Comes From Hearing The Poem Of Another Poem by Shalom Freedman

The poem that comes from hearing the poem of another
And tries to ride on its rhythm
Like the sea on its own waves-

A forced music finding nowhere in itself a music of its own
Because all the poems are melodies made light by more light
As all the poems are dreams made dreamlike by more dreaming-

And we in our poetic fervor hearing that lyric sound
Go round and round again and again
As if we were the music of the stars
When the universe empirically spherical –

But now in this more deeply instrumented time,
When what we see with our eyes is always less than what we measure
Time and Time again tells us that Space and Space again tell us
That all we are in this long distance darkness
Is one small point of light which in its own sad way will fade out before its music endures-

For the stars have only our imagined music
and not more than the light
of their own violent dying –

So here having heard the poem of another
And open to my own inner voice,
I cry and cry again for another sky and another music
That only God Who is Beyond these earthly hapless sounds
Can Dream and Feel and Know
In the Lyric Ending that justifies our home.