Joel Sumner Smith

It seems strange that an encounter with a mind through poetry can both deflate the spirit but then lead it to a subliminal acceptance or at least a kind self-awareness, however bitter and mysterious. From over a month ago in my reading of Walcott:

Rain will keep hammering the grass blades into the ground.

I admire this violence;
love is iron. I admire

the brutal exchange between breaker and rock.
They have an understanding.

I may even understand the contract
between galloping lion and stunned doe;
there is some yes to terror in her eyes.

What I will never understand
is the beast who writes this
and claims the centre of life.

“Force”