Doc Hernani's Favorite Poems

I am not sure  if this is in fact, Doc Hernani's favorite poems.  So I am taking a wild guess by saying so. Ars Poetica  or The Art of Poetry in Latin,   is a lyrical poem. It describes  the qualities a poem should possess  if it is to stand as a work of art. Archibald MacLeish wrote it in 1925 and was published in 1926.
     

Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,


Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,


Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—


A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.


                 *


A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,


Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,


Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—


A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.


                  *


A poem should be equal to:
Not true.


For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.


For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—


A poem should not mean
But be.


See more of Archibald Macleish here.