Another Poem For My Niece Katie Ryan-Benedict: The Circus Animals Are Still Here Poem by Dennis Ryan

Saturday, Sunday and Monday, July 16-18,2022

"Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind but out of what began? "
---from William Butler Yeats, "The Circus Animals' Desertion"

This poem might sound Yeats' theme, in part,
but my powers, unlike his, aren't diminished,
lost, apart. No, my powers haven't deserted me;
it's other desertions of which I am aggrieved,
that sting, of which I write; no, I do not desert,
leave anyone for whom I feel affinity and love.
I have few circus animals on display, no fame,
no, none of that, yet I hold to my study, my art,
have written, will write more, familiar poems,
already two concerning you, a second for your sister
that show I care. That is enough. How and why
we love reflects the entire history of our development:
we begin life loving cats and dogs, stuffed circus animals.