The poet talks. The reader listens, then talks back. Not out loud, of course. Not whispering in the poet’s ear. But if the poet and the poem and the reader each do their work, a response will come. Something will arrive in the reader’s mindful heart, the trembling of insight infused with emotion. The poet can only imagine the unspoken conversation. Which is what poet’s do. Imagine.
Sitting with coffee in the shadow of the morning moon, the poet smiles. From a distance she hears an inaudible sigh. Someone somewhere has lifted a new word into his/her life.
This is what the poet lives for.
This is what the reader lives with.