Who Knows?

Life knows some hours of poetry

But most of them are prose--

Some treasured notes of symphony,

Far more of monotones.

But these few hours of poetry--

What makes them come and go?

If rhyme and meter make a poem,

Does that make freedom prose?

Appointment books might schedule joys

That make the spirit sing,

But do life's surprises march in step

Or soar on eagles' wings?

A poem isn't what we think.

It takes a form unknown.

Sometimes vacations flop,

But fun comes on its own.

Sometimes rhyme is boring,

And meter can be trite.

But sometimes writing without form

Sounds exactly right.

And sometimes things I thought would rhyme

Don't fit my life at all--

My well-planned dream goes haywire,

And castle-studding falls.

And sometimes my heart skips a beat

When I'm walking the tedious way--

A shaft of light pokes through the gloom--

And twilight glows like day.

Oh, can it be that poetry

Grows its wings from prose?

Or that Journey meets Destiny

Along life's roughest roads?

--CJW--