True Poets pause before they pen
to ponder, pray, and only then
do they let loose and show with ink
just how they feel and what they think.
They sometimes soar like birds and sing;
I’ve watched them whirling on the wing.
They carve on mossy, green-tree bark
by light of moon when day grows dark.
True Poets put in pride of place
true Love, they’ve found, who’s fair of face.
They eulogize in rosy rhyme
this goddess girl in space and time.
Some say that they’re a crazy crew
to think they are the chosen few
who weave their words of make believe,
All unaware they are naïve.
True Poets have a way with words.
They round them up like farmers’ herds
And then select the fairest few
(the beautiful) to breathe on you.
Their poems pave the streets with gold;
They’re unconcerned their rhyme’s unsold.
They seek the paths the pilgrims trod
towards the city built by God.
True Poets dare to dream and dance.
They tread this tragic world in trance;
in meditation on their muse,
whose fire they filch to light their fuse.
I know they play at childish games
and fool around with first love’s flames.
Struck blind by love, they never learn
that beauty, it can bite and burn.
True Poets cradle in their chest
a tranquil soul, they call their guest,
who sleeps serene as silent night,
an infant refugee in flight.
They nurse this hurting, healing child
who once was wayward colt run wild.
For youth he yearns, in times before,
when life was worth the living for.
True Poets let their lyrics lie
all day, in sun, won’t make them try
to be something they know they’re not;
advises them: “accept your lot!”
They let their poems freely breathe.
And if their sonnets start to seethe
they sanction them, to simply be
sweet streams of sunlit symmetry.
True Poets, at the end of day
set out their scrawlings to survey;
curled on their couch with book and cat
they gasp:“My God, did I write that?”