A Jealousy I'M Proud To Own

Your poetry is dark, Mark Strand. I want to emulate it as I hate each line. I want to cast it out, then hold it to my breast as the defeated one who knows I could have said it first had I retreated into selfhood, placing honesty in all effrontery and drawing forth the man who dips into the soul and finds his art. I didn't do it. The gold I see encrusted there forever lies in your domain. Every plain-scribed thought remains your own no matter myriad the times I have encountered it before, for words fall on their knees when spirit rules and art is not contrived but flows forth from its source. I read these washer-woman words with more than admiration, Mark. I fondle them, enshrine their pages with repeated reads, and you will understand I fondly hate them as they trace the highways that a poet laureate selects, the curves and scenic stops along the way that I shall never see or share. ~