Holding the piece of paper
up close while peering
through thick glasses,
my writer friend and mentor
began to focus on my poem like
a jeweler examining a stone. 
I was then just starting to write,
and held my breath for his
homily. "Before I go
on reading this," he said," tell me,
what is a poem to you?" My mind
unrolled a blank parchment.
"I have a book from childhood
which explains just that, in very simple
terms. Remind me to bring it along
next time." But he died before
our next meeting. Since then, I have
been imagining what that book
would have looked like, how it would
have felt precious in my hands, what
revelations it would have contained.
Would it have clarified poetry the way
parables long ago dredged up to fishermen
the depths of Heaven? Would it have
taught me what I already knew all along
but never fully fathomed, like how
to distinguish between heart and stone,
almost identical in the dark? So this is why
I keep on writing: to approach
that definition of a poem I never got
to see in a children's book, which my friend
never got to show me; the evangelist
never knowing what the Teacher scribbled
on the sand that day Magdalene
was dragged over to Him, the mob
clamoring for her to be stoned.