Someone Told Me

I know who of course told you
your poems of course will not
change the course of the world.

Yes yes yes of course
your poems won’t change
the world’s course.

The syllabus for the world
of course contains no poems
no flowers in tender vases.

Of course rivers do change
course and the palms
at Refugio into the ocean fall.

Likewise mountains blow
away, rain forests burn,
night’s hollow sirens curse.

And of course it goes without
saying but like good poets
we’ll say it twice anyway:

We didn’t write anything
with purpose to change
the lines of global affairs

or even local trists and by that
we mean right here now of course
in this sadly redundant poem

written while sitting out
in the morning cool air
when poems part ways

part of the world’s course
as off course as all things
of course as if a course exists.

But here comes the sun
today the temp 101 to be
I say of course

It’s still summer of course
and we’re on course
to break another course.

Palm Trees at Refugio

Note: My title, “Someone Told Me,” is the first line from a poem by Patrizia Cavalli. It’s from her first book, “My Poems Won’t Change the World” (1974). Her poem is untitled and only six lines long. I have it in a copy of her selected poems edited by Gini Alhadeff (FS&G 2013), also titled “My Poems Won’t Change the World.”