THE ESSENTIAL RICHARD WILBUR

Who else but you could make

a poem pirouette in place

to its own music?

Such art

can never simply happen

without the sense of something

else invoked—some mystery,

some secret.

Call it a miracle

that guides the hand and heart

when pen and paper meet.

Call it what mutes analysis

or calculation.

It answers

to nothing but itself.

To be

accepted and known, it needs

no more than to be felt

as love is felt and unforgotten.

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