The Dying Poet
By John Herlihy

The dying poet knows he has but few words left;
All mystery vanished, his mood no longer bereft.
His words now immortalized as strokes on a page;
The lettering may rot but the meaning will not age.
At first, his words come but few and far between;
The muse’s voice heard in the wind but not seen.
Every verse came to feel like falling down a hole;
Some images he managed to capture, some he stole.
Every word he wrote drawn from his life’s breath;
All joy and sorrow reflected in the window of death.
Some days, the poems broke like the morning dawn;
Some nights, he felt like driftwood after the dusk storm.
Now, he hears nothing inside but the faintest of whispers;
His cat looks into his eyes with milk drops on its whiskers.
And what does he see but the phantoms of his dreamland;
All the moods and emotions run thru his fingers like sand.
Time will now fail him to write of Gideon and Gomorrah;
The dark landscape shines with the night sparkle of Aurora.
What shall I write further, he thought, the time has come;
The heavens open, angels descend, nothing can be undone.
He wandered deserts and mountains seeking the worthy;
Our poet had found truth and beauty in a world unworthy.