My Word's Worth

“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply.”

I have thought long and deeply.
I fear I lack passion.
I want a certain sensibility
toward nature and my Self
that men long dead
had writ volumes on.
My sensibilities are suburban-bred.
I possess an ill refinement
that does not bode well for Romanticism.
I can only look upon nature and think,
“This is all that is good, that is all I know.”
Beauty is truth, so it goes.
A bitter taste upon knowing
my sensations of warmth,
my heart’s more musical beat,
my soul’s soft glowing
were artificial.

When I inhale mountain air
and let the light breeze
whip and wrap ‘round,
make me shiver,
cause a chill sweep down,
I know the awe is not my own.

My careless reverence,
coupled with passive love,
created an erred deference
that nature may not deserve.
My passion was borrowed,
a truth that beckons sorrow
to rise. No part of me dies,
as no part had really lived.
Revelations of living as Keats
is no reward, since such replication
signifies a deficient existence.
I do not wish for his eyes, his fame;
above all not his insight on the untamed.
I wish only for a life of my own;
To interpret myself how the sun has shone;
the grace of which bluebirds have flown.

There will be no frustration felt,
if under secluded scope I see
the same as Samuel saw,
So long as the conclusion found
is equally personal and profound.
Until I can appreciate nature fairly,
I’m unable to ignite the same spark
to recite weighted words
and create imagery as stark.

Untouched and wholly preserved,
Forests impose upon a lake,
unbound wilderness abound,
all-surrounding;
deafening with the sound
of poetry unwritten.
I swell with inspiration,
look at the lake enshrined,
and to my Self I say,
“I love how it shimmers today,
and the way it calms my mind.”

We owe them our love of the lake;
its imperceptible subtleties,
the thousands of blues and greens
slipping through and ‘tween
one another, and the late morn’ sun,
how it furnishes the surface’s sheen.
O! The way sapphire waves do splash
with a rhythmic clap,
a smack, smash and crash
into the shore of brush and ash.
My fresh feet dig and prod,
hunting for firmness in the sod.
I slip into a state, unbeholden
of responsibilities, and envision
a young boy with my eyes, entranced
with my visage as I look into the lake.
Hours spent at ducks and drakes,
make up my memories of this place.
I trace my lineage to this plot,
going four fathers back,
who would’ve never built
upon the silt
a shed or shack.

Sometimes a lake is just a lake;
my sincerest apology to Romantics
and every manic poet with attachments
to branches and all that is not fake.
For their sake, they had a place
in the history of well-adorned verses
and deftly made their case.

I am their marionette.
That this form acts as outlet,
rather than prose or rant,
denotes their impact.
I cannot separate my thoughts
from those who looked inward.
When I see that lake and say,
“I love how it shimmers today,
and they way it calms my mind,”
I must ask if that thought is mine
or the likes of Shelley,
stretching from the past,
with influence everlast,
twisting my wrist,
as the immortal ventriloquist.

Apologies to those perhaps offended, but
Romantic recollections can feel pretentious.
Remembrances perhaps pretended,
rendered with language
of earnest urgency;
they are the saints of scenery.
Preludes and revisitations,
Inner reflections,
unlocking the imagination.

They plunged into passion
never to return for air.
With their last breath,
they dove in.
You’ll still find them there.

To see a mountain’s breadth
or plains testing the limits
of distance and description,
and be able to say with full conviction,
under my own accord,
that I’m unmoved,
is freedom.

No longer a slave to the concepts
of John Keats; Coleridge
having no more control.
I want to be able to remain passive
to the ferocious beauty of nature,
and not feel a burning shame
for neglecting Romanticism’s name,
for not feeling the same
about the lush corners of woods
that may remind me of my youth.
A disconnection will mean rebellion.
Astounding sights will still be met
with proper awe,
but as a choice, not as law.
Default revelry at the tying thread
‘tween arousing power and the pastoral
is at an end;
A rift as wide as canyons’ spread.

Incomprehensive to that mountain’s breadth,
some modern lovers sidestep depth.
They, like I once had,
observe with good intentions,
but speak without consideration,
and in this unprocessed adoration,
make mention of the great untamed
without a scrap of veneration.

See,
along the path, the road split off.
A narrow one that few undertook,
not giving the other a second look.
Unshook and able to read an Ode,
they could still think on their own.
A day would pass for those few,
a fresh brook would come in view
and they’d comment twofold,
with the power of poetry
and the reason of Pope.
These few remain still today,
separate from those who strayed away.
A jumbled fray of which I was part,
until a revelation came my way.
The path I had taken was faulty.
Love without basis for love;
Such love is not love at all.
These many see a national park,
and wrongly say, “natural,”
unbeknownst of Man’s quiet marks.
Fooled by the secret landscaping,
believing organic placements true,
when reality reveals human hands’ shaping.
They say well of what they see,
but what they see is often not so.
When they do see the truth,
they still speak well, but do not know
why they speak so well.
A Pavlovian response will tell
why such kind words are said.
The many are the dogs,
lurid landscapes the ringing bell.

One path of a conscious passion;
One path of superficial fashion.
I have left the path of unawareness,
but with one defense in fairness
to the many of my former road.
William and John and they
who put nature on a pedestal,
placed it nigh unreachable.
An air of seriousness will rise
from the pages of poets demised
that are overwhelming at times.
But of all their works read and felt,
I feel that’s their sole crime.

My heart is at rest for now,
for finally taking account of how
I did not before question my Self.
Free of Romantic influence,
the possibility of a confluence
of the two roads is one man closer.
I’ll be awed by what I choose,
recognize artificial nature’s hues
and hope that the many
stray as I did from that path;
Not the first, nor the last,
My escape is my second birth.
Previous compliments,
in dearth of substance,
disserviced the earth.

Finally, I feel the spark.
Now freedom brings unbridled mirth,
For ‘til I knew my words were mine,
My words had no worth.