for Juliet Capulet
Alas, no rogue am I who humbly blessed
receives your note. And how your soft reply
replete with grace warms a poor poet’s breast,
urging him to embrace apology,
neglect your brief neglect, welcome your phrase
of hope, your lithe and bare biography;
invite him to kneel, accept your bright praise,
imagine how you feel as you write, free
to match noun and verb with sensitive sense
of image and sound, the way a sparrow
lifts, shifts, and sails through air, turning through dense
cloud, soaring toward dear earth like an arrow
from Eros’s bow, rock from David’s sling,
sudden rainbow, or note an angel sings.
Roger Armbrust
October 29, 2008
