Caught Between The Whisper And The Muse Poem by Andrew David Dalby

"The other half of half afraid opens many a door." Brendan Kellery

If I am roughly ripped and cleaved from a rocky heart
And then thrown out, from a callous rough muscled tongue;
Oh, how desperately I wish to be brought into pure life.
To be so shaped, into a powerful sword of burnished steel
That would glisten when touched by the golden light of dawn.

If I am hotly wrestled from the furnace of the soul too late
Then I have already lost my fight for life and begin to crack apart.
I shatter like a stack of brittle bones left to rot in the hot light of day,
To finally turn to shards and then just become just dry dust…
Tasteless, and useless to all who try to touch my beauty and my worth.

If I am far too easily thrown up and out of the heat of the heart
I am simply far too young, and unaware of my form to function.
How simple it is for me to bubble and blister happily in the souls of men;
and have unthinking consequence of form or strained pertaining action.
For I am blown out, far too quickly upon the winds of lost selection.

If I am too cool I sadly rest upon the dusted floor, just useless
Unfettered and unguarded, a twisted lump of unwanted form.
There's nothing here worth saving… nothing here at all,
So I am left to left to be trampled underfoot, broken and rejected;
To everyone who sees me trying to boldly walk so tall.

But… if I am just right, and I am caught in the whisper of the muse;
Then like a golden butterfly I awake, transformed, cut, shaped, hewed.
I hold... strong tall and bold; captured...whole.
leaving truly nowhere upon these spheres that cannot dare to go!
So no God below! or twisted fear within!
can keep me from the gentle tender you.