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-- One Story to Tell --

John Herlihy

I have one poem to write,

And I keep rewriting it.

A poem of the human plight,

And I keep reciting it.

I have one story to tell,

And I keep retelling it.

A story to cast a magic spell,

Dawns, days, dusks filling it.

The poetic images feel sublime,

They pull us into here and now.

Universal symbols yours and mine,

In touching us, they fill us somehow.

The narrative stream may change,

With no control over what happens.

Events our moods to rearrange,

Full of color, soft texture, patterns.

The story goes out into the world,

Where it takes on a life of its own.

Inside the crusty oyster shell, a pearl,

Over days, weeks, years, slowly grown.

May this story find some form of merit.

My story but a tale of the human spirit.

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(c) John Herlihy 25 March 2020