the abnormal is not courage

The Abnormal Is Not Courage
The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the GermanTanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.And yet this poem would lessen that day. QuestionThe bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.It was impossib1e, and with form. They rode in sunlight,Were mangled. But I say courage is not the abnormal.

Not the marvelous act. Not Macbeth with fine speeches.
Not the marvelous act, but the evident conclusion of being.Not strangeness, but a leap forward of the same quality.Accomplishment. The even loyalty. But fresh.Not the Prodigal Son, nor Faustus. But Penelope.The thing steady and clear. Then the crescendo.The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding.Not the surprise. The amazed understanding. The marriage,Not the month's rapture. Not the exception. The beautyThat is of many days. Steady and clear.It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment.-Jack Gilbert Gilbert has several books. One is *Refusing Heaven,*