What Is A Poet Poem by Patrick William Kavanagh

What is a poet, or a writer, or a shaman, or a priest,
Are we the bringers of good tidings, or the spectres at the feast.
Or, are we those who simply Will not drown, Despite the words and images that flood into our minds,
Bursting out like some huge, and boiling, bubbling spring,
from somewhere dark and deep beneath the ground.

Are we madmen, trapped in ancient mysteries, babbling on about the corpses of the ancient dead,
Mumbling on about the things that others cannot see and will not see,
the crumpled, dusty books that are no longer read.
Are the sources of our imagery just racial memories imprinted on our DNA, and badly read by our unconscious minds,
Or are we truly visionaries, touched by the living gods, repeating truths that guided mankind since the dawn of time.

Perhaps we are just children of a different world,
escaping back in fantasy, through paintings and through words.
But still, If all our rambling can bring to you, a little light, a little hope,
and burdens in this cold, hard world become a little easier to bear,
Then we can rest a little while, for we have shown, the only way we know,
that in this life there is someone who cares.

Lincolnshire

26/12/12