Come, Climb, Dance or Fly a Poem

Come with me, dare to taste the yen of poetry, for oh

The heart can traverse fathoms where a foot will never go

Come, let its letters fuel what fetters of stringent law

Can never render; wonder, the accomplishment of awe

The foot for all its purpose practices pure principle

Of backward, forward, upward, onward walk-run-dance-stumble

The heart, oh but the heart can fly on syllables where ink

Turns letters into pictures and gray day to raving pink

Come with me then and step across cold thresholds steeped in fact

Climb past these elemental vestibules to worlds intact

Where lyric, lilt and rhyme render splendor with tender verse

And do not think too hard, for bards are exempt from Law’s curse

Kick off your wooden shoes, slip into gossamer and silk

Then climb the vine that leads to lands that flow with honeyed milk

And do not be afraid to dance, or at the least to try

For in the arms of poetry to fall is but to fly

© Janet Martin