Tell them yes.
Tell them poetry is what chose you.
Tell them
you had a night, once,
just as they did,
when you knelt alone on the cold tiles
and asked the night
to give you a reason for being.
Tell them the answer was your life.
Tell them we are nothing, nothing
without passion,
the wild dark flock
that fills our rooms with joy.
Tell them
you will give the rest of your blazing days
to try to give another life
that moment,
that moment when you opened
to the coldness
and found that the music of your ruin
was too beautiful to ever be destroyed.
Poetry Reed Diffuser by Joseph Fasano
Joseph Fasano is a poet, novelist, and songwriter. His many books include The Teacher, The Last Song of the World, and Fugue for Other Hands. His writing has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is celebrated around the world for what the poet Ilya Kaminsky has called "its lush drive to live, even in the darkest moments."





