We Need More Poetry

It takes a late and slowly blooming wisdom
To learn that those we marked infallible
Are tragi-comic stumblers like ourselves.
The knowledge breeds reserve. We walk on tiptoe,
Demanding more than we know how to render.
Two-edged discovery hunts us finally down;
The human act will make us real again,
And then perhaps we come to know each other.

From “Stepping Backwards” by Adrienne Rich.

Thanks be to God for the poets of the world.

Image above is a photograph of Adrienne Rich reading her poems in Bryant Park,  NYC.