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Few of us are fattened
by the experience of reading
the words of other poets,
many of whom are surely passed
to where swords are laid to rest
their mightier strength spread
as the petals of their immortality.
Yet their words from yesterday
remain to feed my sensibilities
and bend my imagination
as if nothing had changed
as if I had not been molded,
heated, shaped and bent
by the passage of my time,
and now by the feels they left behind.
It makes me wonder if indeed
my own words will be attenuated
and dispersed, only to become
the flotsum that bobs along
as the scum on a stagnant stream.
What is it that takes me to assume
there is any permanence or purpose
in my continued scribbling
when their's is only understood
by those who stop and take the time
to sift through the musty pages,
to blow away the moldy dust
that lies filtering away the brightness

of what they left for us to read:
The few from oh so many.


© Allen Ansell 2022