A wise grandfather, skilled designer,
approached with serious concern -
to ask 'What is a poem? '...
no ready answer - but the question
spoken so touchingly
as if indeed it mattered...

A poem?

Some sounds
from heart to heart
to melt the heart?

To join our inmost thoughts?

To keep in mind, recall
what human kind most values,
needs to value?

To share a laugh
at this extraordinary human comedy
and blow away its illusions?

To reassert our human greatness
and the humanity of humanity?

To preserve the finest sounds
of our beloved language
which hold
all that we love?

To tell a new, entrancing story
which we'll never forget?

Blowing a soap-bubble world
with all the colours of the rainbow
sliding around on its roundness
while we clap our hands
and pop it goes..

Just - serious fun?

In Pooh-Bear language,
simply
People Reading It And Nodding?

Really,
a poem is like
an angel, a dragon, a favourite food, or a Special Friend -
you'll know it when it comes along...

My wise friend
said thank you,
he'd always wondered.

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0428-what-is-a-poem/