There is rhythm in everything: breathing, heartbeat, music, and poetry. There is a rhythm in the movement of a pendulum as it indicates the passage of seconds, into the cycle of day and night, new and full moon, and our own life and death.

Some prose has a poetic quality, a rhythm that is not a rigid structure but rather one that is related to the story -- regular and steady, as during a description of landscape, then galloping on short words when the fox hunt begins.

Even if a poet does not intentionally plan the rhythm of a poem, readers will experience one; they will create with a pattern that corresponds to their own style of speaking -- stressing important words, and slowing and speeding as they feel fit.

In some poetic structures, like sonnets, the rhythm is clearly set, with the uniformity of a military march:

Your smiling is a warming light to see,
A quiet loveliness my eyes embrace.
Illuminating love upon your face,
To linger in the love you shine to me.

One cannot smile all the time, nor maintain an accent on every word of verse. It is the balance, in the down-up of verse, that gives it life -- like in our own life's awake-asleep duality. And it is the balance that gives it energy, as in electricity, which is electrically positive-negative.

Whether one is writing free verse or a sixteen-line iambic pentameter sonnet, there are structures of rhythm, reason, and rhyme. The mind operates through structures and patterns, so everything has these properties, though they are sometimes unseen.

We all live within these structures. An eagle, with all its apparent freedom, is still dwelling within the restrictions of the laws of aerodynamics and gravity. And its flight is determined very much by harmonizing its will with the flow of the wind.

In musical improvisation, there are structures of rhythms and chord progressions. The solo instrument tends to honor their presence by playing off the orchestra's rhythm and observing the pleasantries of harmony. Yet, for soloists to create a truly great melody, they must express the music within themselves -- though it comes out in the context of a structured song.

The magic of improvising in music (or in poetry) is to transcend the structure. Frameworks exist, as created by the orchestra (or, in general, of society), and the soloists acknowledge them as the necessary complement to their own expression. But they are seen as part of the solo, and not as limitations.

Dissonance is allowed, and it is beautiful, because it is done with that loving sense of harmony that allows the soloist the freedom to play any note that feels right. It's like this: when we love someone, you allow the person to be expressive, whatever that self may be. And in music or poetry, anything may be an expression of beauty and love.

In poetry, there are structures that appear to be limitations. For example, a sonnet must have five beats (iambs) per line. If the poem is written from a certain perspective, we observe the limitations, and we choose words that fit. If, however, the poem is written from a more-inclusive state, there is no conflict between the poet and the laws of the poem; instead, the structure and the words exist simultaneously. And in the moment in which the structure is selected, the poem instantly appears as a natural outgrowth of its own life, within a structure that is not a limitation, but a celebration of its form.

I imagine that a red rose never complains that its flower must be red, that its stalk will certainly be green, and that it surely will grow upward. If it has any awareness of its life-plan, it probably has no judgment of the plan's rightness, nor has it a desire to abandon the plan.