Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of easement ledges where the moss has grown

A poem should be worthless

As the flight of birds

A poem should motionless in time

As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to

Not true

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love--

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--

A poem should not mean

But be

--Archibald MacLeish