poetry

I don't know much about poetry. I've always been intimidated about posting my own, for fear someone who knows more about poetry than I do will read it and my secret will be out: I don't know the rules of poetry.

And then I changed my mind. (I do a lot of that.)

I decided that that's the freedom of poetry. Think of it as God-freedom, salvation-freedom, freedom from forms and formulas and checklists and periods and punctuation. Poetry lets you use the words that mean something, the words that expand your heart larger than it deserves to be expanded.

To accept poetry means you can say things like "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2.23) even though others may say, "That doesn't mean anything." But oh, what it means! Poetry means everything; it means there's life beyond what you see and hear and smell. It means there is life, and it's to be had.

Poetry lets you feel deeply, hurt deeply, and love deeply. Poetry says, Yes, you can repeat that as many times as you want because "his mercy endureth forever" (Psalm 136). And it also says you can put words beside words they've never been beside, and the words will commune and interlock and bear offspring of truth. And then the truth will set you free.