To a Young Poet Resisting Hopkins

Don't even try to understand the logic of a rhyme that rises on wing-feather to achieve lift of line. Song is what takes hollow bone and makes a wing, leading edge of wing, wind-hover adrift of line. Blind-bright sun on feathers will give shape to flight. Translate that, its fine sift of line. Now you have music. Meaning springs from language like a fledgling full-formed on the shift of line. Here's longing sprung from brooded egg, broken empty shells, the bare-bone body, shrift of line. Take flight, leave the shell behind. Unfurl these wings to sail, spendthrift of line.