Water Music (Robert Creeley)

I like the poet, so I picked a new poem of his at random. And, ha, what is with poets telling me that poems don't have meaning or rather that they don't have to. I don't think so. Maybe poems don't have to have a grand idea at their heart, but I do not agree with the claim that words mean nothing, which is what this poem is trying to do. It's just telling me that words sound good, like "water music", but that they do not have to hold greater importance than that.

But, you know, bosh! To say that words never mean anything is ridiculously unworldly. Words and images contain a great deal. Even if that 'deal' is simply the eating of lunch, I don't see how that statement is a zero-sum. It still means something. From the "nothing" in this poem I learn that words are like water. They bounce about through water making music. I learn that words are always on the search for a place to stop, rest, and replenish. That words are searching, and that through their searching they make "beautiful music."

Favorite line: "off the boats,/birds, leaves."