honey and sting

Declaration

If I am a poem,
Am I carved in a rock?
Tossed in a bottle in the sea?
What is the poem that is me?

Sent in a teletype machine?
Scribbled in ink?
Do I make someone cry,
and another one think?

Does a round voiced announcer
intone me out loud?
Am I whispered in private
or sung to a crowd?

Am I charming and witty?
Am I somber and sane?
Do I move you to pity,
or make you feel urbane?

Do I go best with papyrus
in a long-buried cache?
Am I written for wisdom?
Am I thrown in the trash?

Do I shake you from sleeping
alone in your bed?
Do you prowl the house wondering
what's that noise in your head?

Have I forced myself slowly
or licked at your brain?
If you don't let me out soon,
will there be pain?

Or am a blessing,
a calm, gentle breeze?
A dewdrop of sweetness
that emerges with ease?

I am all the voices
that you have inside
your choice to ignore me
or claim me with pride

And this I can promise
on that day that you tell
the words that are in you
the love and the hell

And all that you've been through
and all that you are
And the things close within you
And the news from afar

Will arrive in that moment
like thunder and rain
in the song that you are
and the sound of your name

(Now, whisper it gently
to all who will hear...
in a silence so holy
there's nothing to fear...

This IS the communion,
your soul's living flame
and you know that you'll never
be lonely again...)