A Line of Poets
By: Paul Edward Costa
A baton touches my hand when it swings back
and in an instant
I’m not a solitary runner on a cracked desert;
it slowly dawns on me that I never have been,
I’m linked to a train
reaching from the cool, steady hand
passing this position to mine,
all the way back to poets who set
the vivid life of city states into history and permanence,
cast lassos in the air,
caught ethereal spirits and emotions
floating above the heads of people
in squares of celebration
and set them into the shapes of runes lighting up
when you read them and see a sensation you’ve always felt
but never had verified
by the reality of a concrete shape.
I pray I leave behind
not just a record of words
but a poetic spark in more souls
than those who know they have such a lightning inside them,
that I hope grows into a fire of minds
fiercely expressing their free identities
and setting lines of future poets aflame
with the responsibility of their art’s capacity
for commemoration,
celebration,
reminding,
remembering,
and encapsulating the dynamic realities of this place,
this time.
