The world and this Web log are not finished with National Poetry Month, so I’m asking local poets to send in some verse for the immediate gratification of seeing it on the Web. John Goggin, my other brother, did quite well yesterday, sending no less than three poems (or pomes, as he lovingly labels them) which attracted quite a bit of attention.

Mr. Goggin also sent the beginnings of a collaborative writing venture which may become a project on this site or may well deserve a site of its own. Anyone interested in assuming a variety of personae and contributing to an epistolary novel? Let me know by comment or email. I’m listening.

To kick things off for today, I’m posting one of my own poems. Don’t be afraid. Get that candle out from under that bushel basket and shine it on the world.

Celebrate!

An Essay

Think of your body as a convention of cells
drawn out of each other
Each with its life, its struggles and needs,
shuffling through twisting strands of functions and excretions,
honey to their brother and sister cells,
in tumbling exchange of molecular delight.
All for one and all for good for you.

And which of those cells expiring,
giving its all to its absorptive neighbors
or flaking off your shoulder, floating down
through leather and grasses
to feed protozoaic deconstruction engineers
who break it down and distribute its chemical prizes,
Which cell reaching its end made an end of you?
Not one yet if you still listen.

Take heart then and hope against hope
that some ancient wisdom born
in some protein laden soup
stirred by the cooling mother’s hand
when a cell formed around a spiraling idea
then burst with joy in two and then again and again
till so many cells pressed against each other
they found solace and mutual exhange
and agreed the next split would not be so full
and two would live as one,
then four and again and again,
till the math was done and you breathed your first
but surely not your last
To you, fair sir, fair lady:
Good health.

I think this poem says something like life’s a mystery, doesn’t it? Actually, I’d appreciate comment on this one.