The Muse – A Poem

Were I a stone in a pale river,

the water would teach me

sculpt me

beguile my bones into shapes

I’d never known.

Were I a cliff, lording over the sea,

the wind would, over patient eons

move upon me,

at times a gale, sharp yet sincere,

at others, carrying the mist softly to my face,

that I might feel things

to which I’d never awakened.

Were I grass, short-lived and thirsty,

but always a friend to the sun

the rain would nourish my roots,

and beneath its clouds, it would remind me

that no day is ever-bright,

but nor is the darkness always my foe.

Were I fire, booming in the hot belly

of the earth untamed,

my release would raze the life from all things

yet in the end,

I would gladly perish,

and all else grow anew.

And were I a maker of words,

quill in hand, burning hearth in place of ordinary heart,

she would smile at me,

and whisper thoughts undreamed into my ear,

that I might wake the next morn beside her,

with always another page,

another tale,

and never a dry spell

for the garden in which we live.

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J Edward Neill

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