Friday, April 6, 2012

Ode to the Death of a Poem (or the Froggy’s Demise)


What joy to watch the frog called “gimpy” - ‘twas a little boy named Joe
Who loved the way he hopped from stream to pond to rock where mosses grow

A gladdened heart was in the child when e’er he came to Silver Stream
Until the day the “gimp” was taken quickly by a medical team

What mercy lies in scalpel hands –amphibians are meant to die
To find out what makes froggies tick and how their muscles make them fly

No tears were shed for little Joe who missed his friend at Silver Stream
No more the “croak”, the bulging eyes, the “jeté” under moonlight beam

The doctors claimed the only way to understand what’s there inside
Is opening the outer shell and piercing through their softened hide

And now in books they’ll know for sure what made our little gimpy fly
But never will he jump again and Joe will always wonder why

I thought of this the other day when reading lovely poetry
It touched my soul, infused my mind and moved my heart to ecstasy

Its’ stirring words and lofty thoughts I must say took my breath away
Its’ brightness took away the dark revealing, nature’s glorious day
  
And never did I think for once that poems like this would suffer loss
Until the order “explicate” with verbal scalpel came across
“One needs to see just what’s inside and what makes poets words so great”
So armed with theme and tone and style I set out to elucidate

And finally when the work was done, I saw what made the story roam
But lost was all the ecstasy when first I read this lovely poem

No longer does it “hop” or “fly”
-Think I know the reason why!

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