NaPoWriMo Day 25 – Have you gazed?

Apr.26 update: originally written for NaPoWriMo Day 25 (yesterday), but the prompt at dVerse on Apr.26 fit the bill so perfectly that I am sharing this there too.  According to the dVerse rules, I am not supposed to mention which poet I am trying to emulate, but as this is a published poet and poem, I would rather mention the poet’s name in case of any copyright issues.

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The opening line of my poem is taken from The Call of the Wild by Robert W. Service (1874-1958).  Service spent many years in The Yukon (in Northern Canada) during the gold-rush era, and for the poetry that he wrote, he gained the nickname “Canada’s Bard of the North”.

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Have you gazed on the naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Have you been enthralled by the northern lights and wished they’d dance for e’er
Have you found yourself at the feet of mountains trembling at their vastness
or tried to peer through ocean depths and wondered what is there?

Have you peered into a microscope at things to small to fathom
Have you looked through telescopic lens at glories of the night
Have you ever heard through ultrasound, the unborn’s beating heart
or felt storms electricity make your hairs stand all upright?

Have you taken the time to stop a bit, and sit and drink it in
Have you stopped long enough to notice it, the wonderful, strange, and odd?
If you’re moving too fast, then slow down for a bit to take some time and see
and if you look with the faith of a child, you’ll behold the face of God.

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the NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem, but then write your own work from there. I am currently reading some of Robert W. Service’s stunning poems, so I felt it logical to pick a line from one of his poems.