A Tribute to National Poetry Month

Most people think that if they cannot see or touch something, it can't be real. But we all know that this isn't true, don't we? Feeling happiness, pain or just plain nothingness is a gift that most of us don't like to talk about. April is National Poetry Month and learning to recognize yourself as a unique individual is a large part of this art. You donīt have to have a degree or run with the top dogs of literature. Just jot down your thoughts, your hopes and dreams and guess what? You are on your way to a poem. It is not silly or wrong, just life.

Iīd like to share a poem by a favorite poet/painter, Michael C. Flanigan. See if you can relate. I bet you can.

WILD THINGS

by Michael C. Flanigan

Iīve always been good with wild things.

I mean, once when I was a boy

I walked right up to a young

rabbit and caught it.

The thing is - I let it go right away.

I didnīt really want it.

It was too much like me.

Wild and obstinate and frightened

Like all undomesticated things are

Or get to be.

Itīs been that way a long time now.

Mad sows that killed and ate their young

Would let me come and feed them.

Horses no one else would ride; well, I

Never even tried to ride them but Iīd

Crawl under their bellies and walk them

out of their stalls. Bulls that owned

pastures that no one else could walk in

would charge me wild eyed and frightened,

then stop still and suckle

on my fingers; anything that had a rage

in it was mine for the moment

as if the damn things knew there was a rage

inside me too.

As if me – it and me both understood,

Itīs no good fearing your own kind.

Last week I tried to coax a kitten

out of a cellar; but, I couldnīt do it.

Thatīs the way of it sometimes

isnīt it?

We take a thing deadly serious

and it doesnīt take us back.

Still,

I have my moments.

Wild things love me.

At least they give me

what passes for love

in the lives of wild things.

We share a kind of

freedom. Do you know how

one wild thing knows another, instantly?

Neither envies the other the freedom being wild uncovers.

We know better.

Yet we have our place.

We are all thatīs left

on the face of the earth

that the rest of life

considers

"True Beauty".

Copyright 1975, Logo Press

Consent of Michael C. Flanigan