Poetry Blog No 178 There is a World

THERE IS A WORLD

The meaning and intention of the following piece are fairly obvious. In this respect, verse can play a role in presenting such in a more imaginative manner, perhaps, than a simple statement in prose. In terms of form the piece is somewhere between a formal poem with regular line lengths such as a sonnet and vers libre or “free” verse with a rhythmical flow but no set meter like that written by D, H. Lawrence and Walt Whitman, for instance. Here most of the lines are in regular iambic (a water-living orb) but of varied length with assonance and occasional rhyme. The earth images are mostly from NASA. 

 

THERE IS A WORLD

There is a world,

a planet, born about a star,

a bright and blue-white sphere,

a water-living orb,

a globe cocooned in air,

one world within

harmonious immensity,

but many-beinged

with kingdoms of complexity

beyond conception;

one world that’s woven of

the workings of deep mystery.

Wonder then,

for wonder is the birth of wisdom.

Imagine coming from another world

that travels with another star.

Imagine somehow riding far,

far, far across the vastness,

far, far across the darkness,

until you found the light of our world’s sun,

and saw its smaller and reflecting worlds,

and saw this world, a jewel in blue,

and saw the sparkle of its wide, wide seas,

and saw its white clouds spiralling,

and saw the darker forms, the stretch

of continents, the shapes of mountain chains,

the greens of great-leaved forests and

the lighter hues of desert plains,

the borders of shore lines in complex shapes,

would you not wonder then?

There is a world,

a planet, borne about a sun,

a world with endless life that weaves

across its lands, within its seas.

Its life is warmth; its skin is stone;

its blood is water; its breath is wind.

And as you viewed

this world of wonder,

would you not wish

to save it then?

Wonder now,

for wonder is the birth of wisdom.