Words in Time

Bewildered with the broken tongue
Of wakened angels in our sleep -
Then, lost the music that was sung
And lost the light time cannot keep!

There is a moment when we lie
Bewildered, wakened out of sleep,
When light and sound all reply:
That moment time must tame and keep.

That moment, like a flight of birds
Flung firm the branches where they sleep,
The poet with a beat of words
Flings into time for time to keep.

- Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

~ By the end of a poem, the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield. - Billy Collins