Thursday, August 19, 2010



Modern Muse


A thousand and one stories exist
In our personal book of fables.
Do we know our heart's desire
Or is it hidden in shadows of our mind?

Capricorn and Unicorn may be the signs
Of our future coming, or the designs
For our free will and imagination.
Well-traveled roads are not for us.

Hippo or Hippopotamus?
Miro or Degas?
A modern design on a chaotic canvas
Does not make our life more meaningful.

Pears, persimmon and lime --
Images we use to form
Our understanding of a sublime
View of nature -- our muse.

Hippo and Hippopotamus --
Creating images we dream
Of using them in life, not as a ruse,
But with nature as its scheme.

Dear Ezra, you prophet,
You poet of modern states.
What icons have you left that
We can appropriate to our own fates?


- James Henderson, from Portraits, 1992 (2010)

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