2001/obligated

Poets are obligated
to poetry,
its health,
and its future.
And obligated
to the words
like truth
and beauty
and vision.
And obligated
to their times,
their culture,
their country.
And to their
elders and ancestors,
genetic or literary.
And to their callling,
the gift,
and to the person
in the sedan
beside them on
the road,
and the clerk in
the bookstore,
the farmer who grows
their zucchini,
the husband
who went to work
today,
the wife who ironed
the shirt.

1/24/01