Yesterday began the National/Global Poetry Writing Month.  The first challenge up for April 1 was to write a poem based on a secret pleasure or shame.  Since I am a fairly open guy and it was also Easter, I waited until today to begin Na/GloPoWriMo.

Having no real secrets or shames, it turned my mind toward what might kind of, sort of fit within the prompt.  Besides, as the readers of this blog know, there are on average two poems a day already.

All that being said…. I decided to write a poem on Cryptozoology in that it has always been an interest of mine.  Sometimes, believing more than others.  Sometimes, believing not at all. But. always finding the stories fascinating.   A little bit of something to dream on, right?

Cryptid Curiosity
by Michael Romani

Sometimes a semi-secret sort of treasure
One that pales sometimes in compare and measure
Are the legends from today and before I was born
Of such fantastical creatures such as the unicorn

Having grown up around the world I have seen much
But to make it short, I will lay to a hunch
That my curiosity of such things began in my youth
And a rarity seen in a Philippines gutter and truth

It struck me very odd when I saw a two headed fish
Or what appeared to be with heads on each side like a wish
For thirty years, I wondered what this might be
And it drove my interest in mysteries and biology

Taking a look one day through a huge marine biology book
I shifted through pages of diverse creatures until with a look
I finally found the creature I had been convinced wasn't real
There on the illustrated page was the real deal

An artifice of mimicry that acted to give it protection
And so revived became my bittersweet fascination
It is not enough to say something doesn't exist
Simply because you don't see it when it persists

And truth be told, legends often hold grains of truth
This lesson is one that I've learned well since youth
So many times, animals were dismissed such gorilla and okapi
That I believe it wrong not to think of possible mystery

Even the truth of unicorns has some distinct possibility
Just ask the oryx or consider the depth of the mighty sea
And so there you have my not so secret or hidden pleasure
The idea that there is more than meets the eye is my treasure

Too doubt too much living in an age of hydrothermal vents
Seems maybe odd when things exist stranger than minds invent
We who have barely explored depths of the planet we live upon
Seem very bold to me to not find mysteries to dream on

(c) April 1, 2018  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved