May you know poetry,
and beauty,
may the truth
of love
and love's respect
give you pause and wonder.

For it is in the wonder
of it all, the poetry
in that respect,
where the beauty
which we love
reveals the truth.

What truth,
you will sometimes wonder,
what unfaded love,
what lasting poetry
or final beauty
do death and time respect?

It isn't easy to respect
the given truth,
the beauty
of the moment's wonder,
the awkward poetry
of human love.

The simple fact of love
in one respect
is an occasion of poetry,
a plain truth
at which no wonder
what luck, what beauty.

And your own beauty's
lesson of love,
your presence a wonder
that time and death respect,
the mere fact of you, in truth,
is stuff enough for poetry.

Respect that poetry.
Learn to love the little truths.
Wonder at the beauty.

Bruce Taylor is curator of Local Lit. Every April, National Poetry Month, he indulges himself, which he does in other ways throughout the year, but not so publicly. For more about Bruce Taylor, visit his author page at VolumeOne.org. This piece is from Poetry Love Sex Music Booze & Death, Upriver Press, 2018, available at The Local Store (205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire) as well as Amazon.