Why We Sing

The universe is forever
indifferent to our sorrow

and this is why we
make a music of it.

We are god-forgotten
and this is why we dance
the way we do

why we reach for fire
and other things
that burn

why we learn the language
of everything gone
and turn it into song.

Each day we wake
into a world already lost

and this is why we sing.

*

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in literary journals, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award, and edited Cocky Moon: Selected Poems of Jack Micheline (Zeitgeist Press, 2014). His latest poetry collection, A Room Above a Convenience Store, is available from Roadside Press.