Poem of the month

What It Does

By David Ferry b. 1924 David Ferry

The sea bit,

As they said it would,

And the hill slid,

As they said it would,

And the poor dead

Nodded agog

The poor head.

O topmost lofty

Tower of Troy,

The poem apparently

Speaks with joy

Of terrible things.

Where is the pleasure

The poetry brings?

Tell if you can,

What does it make?

A city of man

That will not shake,

Or if it shake,

Shake with the splendor

Of the poem’s pleasure.