Life's Passion
(A List Poem)
What is your passion?
Impossible to name just one.
From the age of twelve, faith in God
set the course for all that is life.
Second only to faith: Amore.
Ever in love with romance, a taste flamed
by the compelling language of poetry.
Then there's nature, passion-fed
by a childhood replete
with a sumptuous Ozark banquet,
nurturing an ardor for flowers.
Better than food for the stomach
is getting down and dirty,
hands sunk deep in the soil,
matched only by dancing. What can top
moving to the voice of guitar and fiddle,
feet tapping out the rhythm of songs
that speak to the heart if not the soul?
Next, tally those books that fill every room
in the house. Within, I travel to exotic lands
created by ink scratched on paper. I drink
the words from the page, ride tides swept
by the moon, grabbed by songs on the wind,
a mountain refrain, or the roar of a lion.
A last, but time-hungry mania - writing.
Would that words from my pen breathe
power to create climate and justify peace.
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