To A Poet In Prison - Deborah Tobola

To A Poet In Prison

by

Deborah Tobola

To A Poet In Prison
The craft of poetry is not unlike auto body repair after all.
With the right tools—torches, words—you can transform
a rusted wreck of a world into a shiny new ride.
Get you some paint, glass and chrome and make it real.

The craft is not the question: It’s the art that matters.
What separates the poet from the guy who slaps
a new coat of paint on an idea is more mysterious,
more urgent. The art of poetry has nothing to do

with making a living; it has do with making a soul
and making the world soul larger. It’s a calling
and an answering. The poet is a poet no matter where
he finds himself, no matter what befalls him.

He writes because it is the only thing he can do
when all around him others do too much or too little.
He writes because, whether he knows it or not,
he is in dialogue with God, translating the aching world,

making sense of things too terrible or beautiful
to believe, serving them up for others to take in,
word by word. Even the young poet knows
that his gift is a burden, that what he weaves

is a fragile basket of words to hold the world.
He takes things hard, though his words may evoke
the softer world, where truth is a moon flower
blooming in the dark hollow of the throat.

The poet knows no easy way out, carefully
assembling his vehicle, your transportation, stopping,
stepping back, looking through the tinted blue
at you, and through, and back at you.

This poem first appeared in ArtRag in Spring of 2002.

Deborah Tobolah