The Psalmist’s Archives

What is ambition, exactly, in the body
Of an aspiring, just-now beginning poet?

Awards? Campus status? A cushy position?
Being welcomed by the embraces of others

Who embody cultural prestige as poets?
Not much of that to spread around, really, is there?

Close to the neighborhood of spooky, quantum glands,
Wherever self and soul are thought to lie these days,

Perhaps the cherished, hidden ambition remains
To be one of the great poets, major poets,

Familiar name within some familiar canon,
A blurry magnitude of famous quotations.

Or maybe you’re dreaming of changing things
With poems that do good. Forgive yourself all your hymns.