Sometimes Richard Brautigan justifies himself.

The Return of the Rivers

All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.

It is raining today
in the mountains.

It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.

Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heaves
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair.

A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.

...

and sometimes he pulls off the kind of poetry that's beautiful when gradeschoolers write it after their first lessons in simile.

a good evening
is leaning back in rocking chairs on the front porch with lemonades and pieces of the weekend Wall Street Journal, reading separately with the occasional interjection as the last of the sun goes down.

It is July and next month is August. So soon.

...

Auroras

It began in a foyer of evenings
The evenings left traces of glass in the trees
A book and a footpath we followed
Under throat-pipes of birds

We moved through a room of leaves
Thin streams of silver buried under our eyes
A field of white clover buried under our eyes
Or a river we stopped at to watch
The wind cross it. Recross it

Room into room you paused
Where once on a stoop we leaned back
Talking late into daylight
The morning trees shook off twilight
Opening and closing our eyes auroras

Beyond groves and flora we followed a path
Dotted with polished brown bottles,
Scoured furrows, a wood emptied of trees

It was enough to hollow us out
The evenings left grasses half-wild at our feet
Branches with spaces for winds

The earth changes
The way we speak to each other has changed
As for a long while we stood in a hall full of exits
Listening for a landscape beyond us

--Joanna Klink