Poem, Not Poema or Even Poésie
Would literary English have made advance
If Chaucer had not benefited chance
By fortunes of inheritance
Gained by relatives’ misfortunes
Misfortunes that were relative and
Inherent to those whose final breaths
Inhaled the ravages of Black Death
Through Latin fields with French undertones
He laid the English stepping-stones
A path for authors yet born or known
To tread upon, and lay their own
His written words, they lit the path
A ray of light, a sunbeam
Not “columna lûcis”
Not “rayon de soleil”
You read it right, a sunbeam
And, it’s “Through the Kindness of rAveNs”
Not
“Per Humanitas Corvuum”
Or even
“Par la Bonté des Corbeaux”
