Thank Goodness For The Poets – Poem by Sarah Etlinger

Thank Goodness for the Poets

They’re the ones
who can help you find
streams and rivers of green
in the sunlight or a crisp ridge
of opal at the moment the wine hits
your throat to warm it

and they’ll tell you how a crack
looks like the sound of leaves
crunched on a sidewalk
or that a teapot whistling
recalls the taste of spring

and they will tell you
that maybe your best colour
is vanity
(and perhaps maybe after all
you could wear it just a little more
but only on the weekends)
because it flushes your cheeks
so beautifully.

Yes, thank goodness for the poets

because without them
there would be no you and I
to dance in the whispers
dusk leaves on our pillows;
whose kisses birds echo
as they forgive the night
and greet the day
from auspicious branches.