Defending Poetry, etc.

(Provincetown by Childe Hassam, 1859-1935,
American Impressionist painter)

The poet here is providing an answer — but what was the question?

DEFENDING POETRY, ETC.

Yes, defending poetry, high style, etc.,
but also summer evenings in a small town,
where gardens waft and cats sit quietly
on doorsteps, like Chinese philosophers.

~ Adam Zagajewski, born 1945, Polish poet who now teaches in the U.S.