“The Man Is Only Half Himself, the Other Half Is His Expression”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Driven from hearth and home
by the appetite of the seeker for the sea,
the poem set out to find itself
its place, its nightmare, its fable
the love of its life
its epigram, its pantoumness
villanelleness, Shakespearean &
Petrarchian sonnetness
its Keats oatmeal
its Dante Beatrice, its Whitman mammoth
its reverent Rumi ribald.
It searches academia
bars, cafes, Poets House, City Lights
the Library of Congress Poetry at Midnight
Mecca, the Louvre
the Serengetti
and finally descends into hell
rising on the third day
it can’t face heaven
(what if there is none)
takes a chance on the moon
in all its gibbousness--
hello, the moon is full of luminous things
nonsense, mimsy, legend
has a metaphorical nose
eyes made of similes
similes made of smiles
and a tongue that says this:
Home is where the hearth is
the poet is there in a purple velvet chair
holding a silver pen
barely touching the parchment
waiting to bestow grace and beauty
waiting to warm you
ready to bring you from the fire
ready to write you wild in the world
ready to let you go.
—Ernie Wormwood
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previously published in Creation Journal in 2006.