Ode to Poetry

I.

Old as life, the self-indulgent desire

To weave words, apt echoes of a heart’s beat,

With timely, well-turned phrases, fan the fire

Of love, lust, mystery, aches sad and sweet.

‘Lone, a simple sentence does not suffice-

Form and feeling, bow and kiss, so gently;

There’s the start. Alluring in confinement,

Wild words brought to heel; brazen, they entice

Such boundless heights of joy, then easily,

With as much skill, sing of a heart’s lament.

II.

Oh poetry! Beguiling and shifting,

How very many faces you can wear!

Born in a heart, you look to Earth, lifting

Soul-deep pain towards nature to compare.

Anger swift becomes the roiling, churning

Heaving seas, while glee transmutes to feathers,

Scattered carelessly by a moon-sent breeze.

Lover’s eyes turn into gemstones, burning

Embers, or the stars. Fears, soft as heather,

Claw-tipped shadows, that greedily, will seize.

III.

Things wild, tragic, wonderful, the winsome

And the strange, all rendered with such easy

Grace. Poetry, your boundless forms, lissome

In all your moon-sent ways, melancholy,

Radiant, born of sky and sea and earth.

Endless faces, in endless minds, you give

The gift of words. You teach us empathy

And whisper sweet reminders of our worth.

You lend us vibrancy, with which to live,

Tell me-what richer words than poetry?