In Reply To Your Irate Comment... Poem by Michael Shepherd

...well, yes, I agree the 'Comment' box is for comments - but hold on -
I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry...
yes, growing up in the Bible Belt
must be purgatory with only heaven and hell
I mean who reads Dante?
just don't unload it all on me, OK?

I guess I should try to explain myself
(this could be a long one,
like the others I pass over on this site,
who's got time for Byron or Browning or Milton?) :

Trying to make sense of this world
in the allotted time, ho ho,
I've found it helpful in the mind
- though I'm not 'religious',
but not aggressively irreligious I hope;
but still rather pressingly interested
in life and death, that sort of thing -
the concept of some possible unity
through love, Providence, order, law
(the Sun doesn't take a day off)
call it what you will
(or not - the Indians have spent
thousands of years on this sort of language)
and the possibility of finding
things related in some way through
something more than Chaos Theory
(as in a teenager's room)
or Evolution from two atoms
(by Whose law, huh?) -

(are you still with me?)

so that as in the most beautiful
metaphors and analogies
that poets delight in,
you and I and butterflies
and blue jays
and the smell of Spring
and yes, love -
are in some way related...

I think I'll stop there.