Meaning 1

If you ask for the meaning of a poem,
you've already lost it.
Its meaning lies in what you feel.

Does it make you smile?
Are you angry? Do you throw it down
and then come back to reread it?

Does it make you cry, or bring to mind
something you wish not to remember?
Do you start to write?

In other words, do you live it?

Each poem’s a life, a mirror
in which what you see is yourself,
perhaps meet the poet.

And that is the test of a poem:
if it lives or dies.