0003 Reborn Metaphor Poem by Michael Shepherd

I was born to be a metaphor;
Darwin, embarrassed, did not talk of me;
I did not fit into his scheme of things; I,
knowing secrets of the tears of things,
while he used his fine mind
(which is, so obviously, beyond the physical)
to deny that world, the metaphysical..

To be a metaphor
you need to know your place;
stay around too long, you lose
that vital force; no one believes
in the unbelievable – when there’s no mystery,
that’s the end of metaphor for man.

Better choose a quiet place,
some corner of a foreign field
only to be found in mind,
do the necessary – a few dry leaves and sticks
to lay false trail – and the semblance of a nest; you,
a place apart..

The desert, then, was easier; Egypt understood;
the sun rose warm
on the eggshell of pure thought;
Greece, appreciative, then found a name for me;
a whole race followed in my rise;
Rome was, how to put it, unoriginal;
America called a dry town, in an arid zone, after me;
may yet know me, nested in my cruellest magnificence,
ash and twisted steel and concrete, office equipment;
I a metaphor, awaiting a new birth.