Cantabile

There are certain poems that just sing. They just rise off the page and sing at the reader. I don't mean that they are song lyrics. Any poem or almost any poem can be set to music, but that doesn't mean it is cantabile. Nor is it a matter of metrical poetry vs. free verse, since most poems, whether in meter or not, don't have this quality. It's a mystery. Even good poets don't have this quality most of the time. It's very rare, but this is what poetry aspires to:

Tú no sabías que la muerte es bella
y se hizo en tu cuerpo.
No sabías que la familia, calles generosas
eran mentira...

To be continued....