Poetry - Max Reif

[Larry Robinson]

Poetry

Poetry is
judge and jury

as we summon words
from their flights or roosts 
in forests within

and find that those alone 
will come, which match
what it is in us
that authentically calls,

weighing us,
stamping the coin
of a page to evoke
our true inner state,
not a whit more or less.

Written in a tiny room,
a marketplace,
a temple or shrine,
it does not matter,

the verdict 
of conscience appears 
for all or no one
to see,

calibrated
finer than a feather
upon the scales of truth

	- Max Reif