Incremental Poetry ~ 23 Lines

The Way Up

I wonder what it’s like to have,
have everything you want, and enjoy it often.
Often I’ve stopped to listen, and I’ve heard,
heard folks say things both ignorant and wise.
Wise folks are quiet people,
people who speak only when they’ve something to say.
Say, that reminds me of the time that
that vagabond over there,
there on the park bench, who now sleeping is,
is a vagabond on the outside only,
only yesterday I gave him a sandwich, and he asked for another one—
one for his friend who slept yonder a little way.
Way to go. You thought of one, but what of the others you speak to?
To pass them by and go,
go on your way. Is that the way up?
Up the road I saw a woman who said that
that was one way, for sure—but only one,
one for many. But the only true way—
way down in the depths of your soul, you know this is—
is a path straight and narrow that few will take to.
To walk this road is to humbly go.
“Go quietly then, and together in peace we two will walk down,
down this broken road to up,” said I.

Copyright © 2018 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

Welcome to my series, Incremental Poetry, where each week the featured poem will be one line longer than the one I share the week before. I have no idea how long I’ll keep this up, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Thank you for stopping by.

Scansion:
Daisy Chain
Created by George Ellison
The Daisy Chain may contain any number of lines.
The last word of each line becomes the first word of the next line.
Finally, the last word of the last line is the same as the first word of the first line, completing the chain.
Like the Wreath, the Daisy Chain requires no meter, rhyme, or mandated line or stanza length.
I threw in a little twist of my own: a poem within a poem. The first word of each line can be read together to give the theme of the whole.