Poetry, if we may identify
It as “the scholar’s art,”
Is the craft fashioned,
The work crafted by one
Who meditates nightly,
Who mediates daily
Between the world of forms,
The realm of the invisible ideal,
And the world of mutable time,
As real as electric lamplight
On a glass-topped desk
Bearing actuarial tables,
The glass thick green, clear yet
Reflecting projections,
Separating the substantial oak,
The executive’s essential desk,
From the dated volume of mutability,
Of mortality made incandescent,
Against which even on timeless
Quiet evenings in Hartford
Old poets find no indemnity.

DANIEL J. HEISEY is a Benedictine monk of Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA, where he is known as Brother Bruno.