To Verses

“The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” - Walt Whitman

What will your verse be?


An Ode to Verses

The greatest play cascades along;

A river, humming the canyon’s song.

Obstructions rise to block the flow,

The river quietly keeps control,

Such as it has been from the beginning,

Such is the nature we’ve come to know.

The river, once young, has come to grow,

From silence, to babbles, to crashing odes

Of left and right, branches and junctions:

Monuments, to each obstruction

Giving the stream it’s character,

Wisdom, the guide of continual function.

Seeming pointless, staging numbness

Among the path of pain, seduction

Pulls us to our limit, stray

From love and pain to hate,

Far from faith in who we are

Our greedy eyes seek larger plates.

Somewhere, along the way

This cascade, now the most powerful play

Will take its form from your decisions,

Branching, reaching, if you listen

You can almost make out the words:

The graceful song our stories have written.

In the well of broken wishes

Lie those who sought their fuller dishes;

Still, frozen in time and space

Are those who feared to find a place.

Sustain, don’t race for rhythm and rhyme,

These powerful lines aren’t time to waste.

So, as the play continues to move,

As earth beneath begins to shake

From the thundering flow of a river

Once smooth,

How will your verse change it’s shape?