THE TABLE OF POETS

Homer:

I call across centuries, blind but seeing,
a song of the sea where heroes vanish,
yet names ring louder than waves.

Sappho:

I drop a petal of flame,
a fragile ache on the tongue,
love trembling more than battle.

Dante:

I lead you through fire and ice,
through the architectures of souls,
where even silence is judged.

Shakespeare:

All the world bends here —
a stage lit by candle and thunder,
where crowns topple and hearts outlive them.

Emily Dickinson:

I stitch eternity in dashes,
a white heat — a hush —
the afterlife riding on a bee’s wing.

Walt Whitman:

I sprawl my arms to take you in,
sailor, lover, brother, child —
no soul excluded from my long embrace.

Rainer Maria Rilke:

I bow to the angel that terrifies,
the beauty too immense to bear,
and still I write its shadow into you.

Pablo Neruda:

I break an orange open,
the universe spills out,
its juice staining every love with salt.

Sylvia Plath:

I rise burning from the ash,
a body stitched of light and vengeance,
singing where the tongue is torn.

Federico García Lorca:

Moonlight sobs in the guitar,
blood becomes green in the grass,
and death is my dance partner.

T.S. Eliot:

Time fractures, repeats, resumes —
yet in the still point,
all your longing gathers.

And you, we have left you a seat here —
among thunder, petals, crowns, bees, oceans,
ashes, angels, guitars, oranges, and stars.
The poem you carry is already with us;
you do not arrive as stranger,
but as a soul mate.

:: 09.17.2025 ::

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