What is the use of poetry when all that is needed in the world, today, is entertainment?

For a society focused on the next debate, the next argument, the next book is very hard to accept the futility of sparse verses.

Louise Elisabeth Glück, 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature,  writes giving voice to the trauma experience of the war, the Shoah, the sexual abuse, and Jesus’ mysterious appearance as a fully human figure.

Winter Morning

1.

 Today, when I woke up, I asked myself 
 why did Christ die? Who knows
 the meaning of such questions?

 It was a winter morning, unbelievably cold. 
 So the thoughts went on,
 from each question came
 another question, like a twig from a branch,
 like a branch from a black trunk.

2.

 At a time like this
 a young woman traveled through the desert settlements
 looking neither forward nor backward,
 sitting in perfect composure on the tired animal
 as the child stirred, still sealed in its profound attachment— 
 The husband walked slightly ahead, older, out of place;
 increasingly, the mule stumbled, the path becoming 
 difficult in darkness, though they persisted
 in a world like our world, not ruled
 by man but by a statue in heaven—

3.

 Above the crowds representing
 humankind, the lost
 citizens of a remote time,

 the insulted body
 raised on a cross like a criminal
 to die publicly
 above Jerusalem, the shimmering city 
 while in great flocks
 birds circled the body, not partial
 to this form over the others

 since men were all alike,
 defeated by the air,

 whereas in air
 the body of a bird becomes a banner:

 But the lesson that was needed
 was another lesson.

4.

 In untrustworthy springtime
 he was seen moving
 among us like one of us

 in green Judea, covered with the veil of life,
 among the olive trees, among the many shapes 
 blurred by spring,

 stopping to eat and rest, in obvious need,
 among the thousand flowers,
 some planted, some distributed by wind,

 like all men, seeking
 recognition on earth,
 so that he spoke to the disciples

 in a man’s voice, lifting his intact hand: 
 was it the wind that spoke?
 Or stroked Mary’s hair, until she raised her eyes

 no longer wounded
 by his coldness, by his needless destruction
 of the flesh which was her fulfillment—

 This was not the sun.
 This was Christ in his cocoon of light:

 so they swore. And there were other witnesses
 though they were all blind,
 they were all swayed by love—

5.

 Winters are long here. 
 The road a dark gray, the maples gray, silvered with lichen,
 and the sun low on the horizon,
 white on blue; at sunset, vivid orange-red.

 When I shut my eyes, it vanishes.
 When I open my eyes, it reappears.
 Outside, spring rain, a pulse, a film on the window.

 And suddenly it is summer, all puzzling fruit and light.