Volume > Issue > Who Taught You?

Who Taught You?

A POEM

By Lorraine Bochler Eshleman | March 1986

Butterfly, who taught you

Your exotic dance?

Who made your wings melodious?
What makes your spirit chance

That life is meant for sailing,

That days are light and free?

Do you have a “nest egg”
Or only liberty?

What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

Poetry was once understood to be an anthropological episteme, a way of knowing, if only through a glass darkly.

Processional (upon seeing Dürer’s woodcut of Roswitha)

By Dürer’s hand, I saw her kneeling down

Before the Emperor: Roswitha — she

Who…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…