Poetry is always a mixture of the five senses, and the sixth? the ability to know and celebrate what really matters. Here's to the celebration of poetry and life:-)
By Gail Tremblay (b. 1945)
The tongue shapes and molds sound. Speech
Becomes sensation in the mouth vibrating
on the palate and the teeth – touch
done with more than fingertips transmutes
itself to rhythm in the ear. Words outleap
meaning and turn into a way to move.
We speak the names that objects will become.
Voice wakes the light, and we begin to see
the shadows leaves can make against the wood.
We say Earth spins, and suddenly the clouds
move like ghosts of old ones bringing rain
that loves the growing things upon the ground.
I listen to your breath against my skin
and wait for you to name the way you feel,
to tell me where you’ve been and where you go,
to find the shape of things we share and have
to give. I learn and whisper words to let you see
My tongue slips nimbly past my teeth
and finds lips ready to caress
the line of small round scars that mark
your cheek. Nothing mars the surface
of your skin; what is is graceful and words
could never see it any other way. I watch with senses
more perceptive than my eyes, and let you touch me
more than once or twice. Your voice says little;
sound echoes in my senses like the wind.
You fill the dark passages of form with murmurs
that inhabit me until I learn it’s sound not sense
that fills the world, that keeps me warm.
Nims, F. (1992). Western wind: An introduction to poetry. New Yor: McGraw-Hill.