Tuesday Poem: A Brief for the Defense, by Jack Gilbert

I came across Jack Gilbert's poem "A Brief for the Defense" a few days ago, after finding a reference to it in an interview with Jack Gilbert posted at the Poetry Daily website.
A google search revealed a few Youtube videos, but none of them turned out to be the author reading it, and I didn't like the rather overwrought voice of the young woman in one of them - so rather than embed the video, I am just posting the link to the text.

The central message of the poem "we must risk delight" is a powerful reminder, at a time when we seem to be surrounded by bad news in Christchurch - more and more buildings that will have to be demolished, a growing housing crisis, lack of progress on insurance issues, and so on. All of which pales into insignificance compared with problems elsewhere in the world. Gilbert's poem addresses all this very powerfully.

I am aware that asking readers to click links to another site risks losing attention on the internet - but click the link anyway, the poem is worth it.