the origins of our history

w hy is it that when we slip back in time, poetry surfaces as one of our earliest forms of record? Cro magnon man’s handprints and cave art precede poetry. After that comes verse. For us in the West, it begins with Homer’s Iliad, the biblical Psalms, the Greek playwrights, Beowulf and much more. All of it is there. The struggle and wonder of life. Its mystery. Its brevity. Its glory. Its beauty in Nature, by land or by sea. Its sorrow and hope in joy or defeat. Why? Because we are of mortal stuff, yet inseparable from what is higher. From what has gone before us, from each moment’s present desire, as well as that which will follow. And so we are drawn to all of this, to its richness and depth, and to its summons to address the marvel of existence.

Poetry enables us to celebrate life. Little wonder then that we are drawn to write it, to read it, to recite it, and sing it. It can be in the form of a ballad or epic, a soliloquy or sonnet, a rap-piece or hip-hop song, or still a hymn or anthem as we stand in public or sit in silence in the solace of home or in a church, a chapel or synagogue. Who among us does not have a favorite poet or poem we love to recite or recall? Is it Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay or Langston Hughes? Someone as old as Shakespeare or as modern as Seamus Heaney? Why either or any of these or any poet at all? What is it they do for us that our own spirit cannot, or compensate for us in ways our eloquence fails? What is the secret they bestow? The gift they give our hearts when our tongues are mute and slow?

What about yourself?

Have you ever tried writing a poem of your own? All by yourself? And for yourself and yet for something more, for that voice and presence that won’t go away? Aristotle called it “catharsis,” a cleansing and vicarious experience that makes the human heart whole. We all need it. It’s worth trying. It begins with a single thought, a single image, a single word. Like “flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,” or “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise.” Try it. You’ll never regret it, as stumbling and awkward as your first verse may be.

Benjamin Farley is a local author, speaker and poet. His new book, “Song of a Transient and Other Poems,” is available at Amazon.com