rorty on poetry

in response to his baptist cousin’s question
as to whether he had started looking to
religion
as a way of dealing with his newfound pancreatic cancer
of which
nothing medical could be done
he simply replied, “no”---
to one son asking if philosophy was doing anything for him
he repeated the same---
in fact, it wasn’t until he was asked if anything at all
had brought him meaning in those last days,
that he answered without pause---
“poetry.”

beyond all the vast reading that this brilliant man had done in his life
all the intellectual horizons that he had pondered
it was the
“slow meanders” & “stuttering embers”
which brought him life---
the flavors of words which he himself could never cook up
those rhythms &
rhymes
which the likes straight-up philosophers had never seemed to grasp
with the same
umph
that poetry did.

may the rest of us be so lucky as to “stockpile” our hearts & minds with the words of our favorite poets
&
lyricists
who have formed the backbone of every step through this hopscotch game we call
life.