-- The Poet’s Poem --

By John Herlihy

The poet as calligrapher,

Verses scripted in the beauty of words.

The poem as uplifter,

Filling readers’ hearts with the songs of birds.

The poet as force of power,

Plunging into the deep well of mystery.

The poem as garden flower,

Whose petals open to reveal its intimacy.

The poet as prism,

Through which a beam of light refracts.

The poem as chasm,

Filled with sublime, earthly artifacts.

The poet as hunter

Always on the prowl for the thrill.

The poem much blunter

Coming home satisfied with the kill.

The more the poet suffered,

The more beautiful the poems became.

The poet his verses offered,

Each poem held its own unique name.

The poet as communicator,

So that he would never again be alone.

The poems has poet as originator,

To celebrate beauty in flower and stone.

The poet as cloudburst,

Seething as a downpour of rain.

The poem as rainbow,

Its beauty overarching the plain.

The poet as hook,

His inner eye seeing as a sage.

The poem as scattered linens,

Blown off the line, lying on the page.

The poet exposes mystery,

Raising questions to our hearts delight.

The poem reveals secrets,

The world made manifest by their insight.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Sunday 20 August 2023