I Cannot Write Those Poems

I cannot write those beloved poems,
poems of nature and love, poems on how light
takes its time on surfaces

like a beloved’s hand in leisure
stroking with pleasure over a perfect
arm or shoulder,

although I have nothing
against such poems and read them
like food, nourishment for

long days and nights without that beauty,
without what some consider
the enduring truth of the world

that exists beyond us, beyond the works
of humans, as if we are not a part of that world
when we war and kill and mourn,

as if to visit beauty is to release oneself
from seeing oneself in the pain of human life,
to absolve oneself from facing it all —

I cannot write those poems as my hand
is tethered to something else — not better
but not that, a coin-side away from that,

poems people would rather set aside
than read, poems some consider too immediate
or too enraging or worst of all too ugly

to be thought of as poems — and yet
for someone they are as good as hard bread
that can be broken open to reveal

delight within and then after being consumed
will offer strength to get to the next sunset,
the next perfect sunset, the cocked angle

of song bird on branch preparing to sing
as if the world could be created just by that although
someone had to dig the dirt to plant that tree.