Very Little Concrete Floating in These Waves

Abstraction is human! Peter Cole

Insists with emphasis. Ah, we like

That a living poet feels the need

To champion the humanity

Of abstraction, human invention,

In verse, the art that forever drifts

Around the oceans, bumping against

Archipelagos and continents,

But rarely truly colonizing,

Mostly pushing off back out to sea,

Maybe trading a few items first

With local kinds of composition

In song or prose it will trade again

With some tradition on another

Shoreline shouting over the breakers.

Once in a while, out in the doldrums,

Poetry realizes it’s becalmed

With whatever it’s been carrying

And suddenly it longs for islands

Where it left the cargo it hasn’t

And took on the cargo it’s stuck with,

Wishing devoutly to jettison

The current baggage and find fresh goods

Again. But first, you have to find land.