whistling in the dark

Another definition of the poet's art and of poetry's place in our lives that I wholeheartedly endorse.

. . . in the wood

Of wandering among wood-hiding trees, where poet's art

Is how to whistle in the dark, where pockets all have holes,

All roofs for refugees have rents, we ought to know

That there can be for us no place quite alien and unknown,

No situation wholly hostile, if somewhere there burn

The faithful fire of vision still awaiting our return.

David Gascoyne, from "The Sacred Hearth", in Selected Poems (London: Enitharmon Press, 1994), p. 153.