and perhaps I came to poetry too late <br />to dive, a slimmish youth, <br />innocent as youth was or is <br />into the rich waters of the lake of metaphor <br />fed distantly by mountain springs, <br />welcoming in its wateriness, <br />chilling too like a demand for respect, <br />welcoming and chilling as a life; <br />a few strokes and already the green bank <br />and pile of crumpled clothes discarded <br />quickly distant, and here <br />in the middle of the lake, the sky <br />has opened out as if it were <br />some rival to a mountain-top <br /> <br />and the hands press against <br />the resistances of language, the palms <br />flat as between praise and surrender, <br />cleaving a passage to the depth <br />and then the shore of metaphor; and <br />emerging, the sunlight <br />catching the sparkling water droplets, <br />the skin shivering but invigorated, <br />the mind full of life <br />like a poem rich in metaphor. <br /> <br />Older now, <br />waiting as in the paintings of Saint Jerome <br />at his desk walled in by books, <br />pen poised, eyes uplifted, <br />spirit, rich, yet <br />mind not full, but waiting <br />for the grace of metaphor <br />like the brushing of a white dove's wing<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lake-of-metaphor/
