A postmodern explanation of poetry: for Mike who asked

The brain and spinal cord
contain a hundred billion neuron cells
backed up by many more glial cells..

each neuron surrounded by its dendrons
like a tree’s inquisitive, hungry roots
or a seacreature’s gently waving fronds

making synapses, new connections
between what one cell holds, and another,
as a tree’s roots seek its heavenly nourishment in earth;

so that, each time two words of poetry,
put together for the first time by a poet
in just that way, strike your mind or heart,

one of those neurons cries silently ‘Aha! ’
as poetry’s roots and fingers touch its core;
two neurons now joined in holy bedrock..

and since our mind, some say, is but our store
of memories previously received,
then poetry enjoyed, remembered, builds our greater mind;

and all this, like the champions of the Olympics,
so appropriately named after that godly height,
might well be described by corny commentators as,
sheer poetry in motion…

poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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