-- The Soul of the Poem/Poet --

by John Herlihy

Where does the poem come from,

Sparks falling upon the ground of soul?

Specks of light against the walls of mind,

The sparks morph into the first line.

I hear a voice and the next line arrives,

The next line, the next line, and the next.

The lines continue to come out of the ether,

All focused on the absolute nexus of the idea.

I embellish with symbols, rhythms, and rhymes,

Repetition establishes a beat that hypnotizes.

The reader seized and thrown into the trance,

Into the trance of the poem, the wonder of it.

The wonder and the beauty of the unexpected,

Never imagined until now, never heard before.

I think I am finished and I begin to more away,

But something still pulls me back, more ideas.

More ideas, symbols, emotions and heartbeats,

The poetic heartbeat unveils the poem’s soul.

The poem’s soul reveals the soul of the poet,

The poem is finally finished and so is the poet.

The poem, once a beginning, is now at an end,

The writing, the writing of the poem at an end.

The poem itself always continues as a beginning,

An idea, bounded in words, wrapped in beauty.

To be read, listened to, and heard thru the ages,

Long after the poet has returned to the earth.

The poet’s soul found in the heart of the poem,

Here is the written poem preserved on a scroll.

------------------------The Poem-----------------------

The Sickle Moon

Beyond the threshold of window a story unfolds,

An unexpected vision to interrupt my serenity.

The serenity of my mind as I sit alone in my room,

The sickle of the moon descends to the horizon.

I call it the moon but it doesn’t look like a moon,

Somehow this hint of moon told its whole story.

The celestial image seems as a cup bathed in light,

A cup of light filled with all the darkness of night.

The stars indifferent to the moon among them,

From another side of nowhere, the sun shines.

The sun shines thru the darkness as a blind eye,

Until luminous light enlightens the moon’s face.

The solitary, lonely moon makes the night real,

As if stationary, but quietly, surely on the move.

In silence of night, the moon again tells its story.

Phases of darkness and light, emptiness and fulness

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Friday 3 January 2025