on the usefulness of poetry

Poems’ splendor are like the stars’ 

One of many is close and hot and helpful 

for tanning or photosynthesis, 

a sonnet to impress the girl,

a wasteland to define a generation.

Others are pretty, less famous or

accessible but nevertheless

useful for nautical 

navigation if you learn how

to read the signs, a foot, a dipper, 

a metaphor, a kindred thought on Loss.

To find some you must go far 

out of your way, an observatory, a picture 

book at the library, a locked diary

decorated with kittens and broken hearts

beneath a mattress--these stars will never 

cause or cure cancer but they burn 

just the same and just as bright.

And some are thousands of light 

years away and no one will ever see them.

A beauty unto itself, birthing blazing

dying in splendor for the pleasure of being 

lovely, dancing alone in the dark living room 

of the universe or in the mind of a man 

moments before the bullet enters 

his half-crazed brain, 

perhaps a prayer for peace?