Maria Steinhauser’s Ars Poetica

 Beyond the reaches of conventional language:
 The late-night discussions between friends 
 sipping generous portions of wine
 That tints their teeth purple
 While sitting around a campfire
 Seeking answers to questions
 Which will slip away along with the boozy high.
  
 The murmurings of lovers
 Relishing the comfort of each other’s skin
 After their caressing hands have finished their coquetting,
 Delivered by a warm breath is the promise of devotion.
  
 The late-night essays written by frenzied writers
 While drinking too much coffee
 A percussion of keys tapping like hail colliding onto a tin roof.
  
 The glossy paperbacks read by vacationers
 Sunbathing on colorful towels on the beach
 They rarely experience the same satisfaction of closure
 Which the final pages in their book will provide.
  
 Beyond reason or sense or explanation or control
 Is the nebulous realm of the human experience
 Too messy. Too beautiful. Too tragic to be expressed
 Within the confines of proper grammar or complete sentences.
 Somewhere between music and the lines of words on a page
 Is poetry. Rebellious. Untamed. Soul-stirring.