Why poets explain

Poetry is the art of useless articulation
and poets are self-conscious of this 
unconscientious fact.

Poems take eulogies and 
burn out the solar system,

take birth announcements
and light candles from the bottom,

take nuptials and soak themselves
in butterfly tears,

take a moment
and slap eternity's gong

take hearts and murmur,
we know not beaten sound,

take advice and make
lists of string and leaves
and whispers and ears
and acorns and coal dust.

In an instrumental society
the functionless instrument
wonders if it makes a sound.