Like the unicorn, <br />they have to need to be; <br />to hear our need for them to be. <br /> <br />Like time, <br />they must creep up on the writer, <br />on the reader, <br />invisible <br />yet with inevitability <br />which cannot be escaped. <br /> <br />Like thieves, <br />they must enter unannounced, <br />take what they must. <br /> <br />Like mice, <br />they must take up residence <br />until there is no longer sustenance for them. <br /> <br />Like bailiffs, <br />they must demand entrance; <br />be admitted; <br />take their just exchange. <br /> <br />Like housekeepers, <br />they must earn their keep <br />by keeping us in all we ask of them. <br /> <br />Like lovers, <br />they must prove themselves <br />part of our lives <br />until our earthly sentence ends the dream. <br /> <br />Like children, <br />they must know their place; <br />then be loved for themselves <br />beyond life itself. <br /> <br />For they are life, <br />revealing its boundlessness <br />with all the freshness <br />of a lettuce cut from the ground, <br />the well-prepared, fine ground <br />in a landscape that stretches out, is limitless. <br /> <br />Do not deal lightly, or be profligate <br />with metaphors; they are our life-blood.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/metaphor-6/
