The Poetry Crowd

by Arthur Mampel

I can see the evening
before it happens:
so much depends on faces
I have seen before

the cozy crowding of those
who love the poem
who will not betray
the poem that fires the dream

and sends you to a distant star
or some other universe
where the image is clean, true
and forgiving. To hear words

say what they mean
words that will not kill
the meaning of reality
or brush out clarity of thought

The Poetry Crowd!
this is the crowd I prefer,
the crowd I love, the crowd
who could make the word

become real,
could make the word
become flesh and dwell among us,
full of grace and truth.