Once upon a time,
When the church bells would chime,
A poet and a storyteller would talk,
Every Sunday, from two to four o’clock.

Their discussions were deep,
Always about which language the world would keep.
“Mine!” The poet would exclaim,
“My language is emotional, and alive, like a burning flame,
While yours is nothing more than fiction,
Wrought with far too much a restriction!”

“A storyteller himself is a restriction!
You are an affliction,
To the world as it should be run,
By poets, not storytellers, who would wish our language undone.”

“Wrong sir, wrong!” the storyteller would shout,
“I’ll tell you what my language is about!
It is the language of the free,
With possibilities as endless as the blue sea.”

“Mine is the language of the great Aesop,
So please by all means, go ahead and stop,
Explaining your poems to me,
For God’s sake, hear my plea!”

“I do not wish to know of your people - nor of your speaking
Both are simply full of tweaking,
Obsessed with perfection,
It is like an infection.”

“A poet does not know the simple way of a story,
Nor that a story can bring about such great glory.
A poet only knows that his language must be perfect
Why it would drive me mad, I know if I even tried, I would be wrecked.

The poet would then say, “One day you shall see,
That poetry is what makes a person free,
It allows the language to flow,
It allows both the reader and the writer to grow.”

“The famed Homer spoke my way
His and mine are of a language that will never sway,
One that will stand against the world of the storytellers,
For your language is like that of an earth dweller,
Basic and flawed.”

But the language of a poet is the language of a god,
Don’t be offended; storytelling or tellers aren’t bad or wrong,
They just aren’t as far along,
As that of a poem or poet.”

The discussions would continue every Sunday,
Always, until one day,
The poet was not there to greet the storyteller.
The storyteller thought he was in a dream,
He thought the poet had given up, that the storyteller’s language was supreme.
And this absence of the poet continued for several days,
And people began to wonder if they had parted ways.
And the storyteller too, began to think,
So he went to the poet’s house and smelled a great stink.
He stumbled inside, but only to find lying in his bed,
The great poet, stone cold and dead!

The corpse reeked and decayed
And the storyteller became quite afraid.
Afraid that his life would be boring and bare,
Without the poet to always be there.
The body was collected and burned,
Then placed into an urn.

One autumn day, the storyteller decided to roam,
All through the village, and soon he went to the old poets home,
He went inside and hung his coat,
Then he found what appeared to be a note,
The note was from the poet, who wasn’t his enemy, but actually his friend,
It was the poet’s final attempt to make an amend.

The note read,
“My dear friend, over all of the years, we have talked and talked,
About which language the world would keep,
Yours of stories, or mine of poems.
You will probably notice that I am not consistently in rhyme,
But I feel the need for two separate languages has had its time.
My last discussion with you, is through this note,
And I would like to say, that language is beautiful, both mine and yours.
They do not have to be separate, but I believe they can be one and the same.
You see, it is through stories that poems are born,
It is through storytellers, that poets are created,
And yet the same is true in reverse.
Stories are brought about by poems.
Storytellers are often brought about by poets.
The two are so intertwined that they relate in nearly every way.
And while my whole life I have been a poet,
I am making an effort not to rhyme,
Yet keep the fluidity my language has.
This note is meant to show you that our languages, our people are actually quite similar,
That without one, the other would not be complete.
All I ask of you, is to do this one thing for me. For my language. For my people.
Carry on the language of the poets,
Show the world how both are in harmony with each other.”

I am the storyteller. I have always preferred straight stories,
but recently, I have learned that poems are stories.
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I am a storyteller. I can twist the universe into my hands and make something unique.
I can dream what no others can, my language and people can reach a peak,
no others can.
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But I’ve also learned that poets can bring about storytellers, and storytellers can create poets.
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I am a poet. My language and people can flow like a mighty river, our language is supreme.
It can become perfect. I can explore the darkest elements of a dream,
and bring them to life.
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And so now I have learned to write in combination of both prose and poetry,
To carry on the long standing legacy of poetry, and stories, and my friend, the poet.
I am a storyteller.  I am a poet.

My final amend to my friend is this:
I have always believed that ignorance is bliss,
I always thought that storytelling was better,
But I confess through this letter,
That I know what you mean, I understand what you used to say.
But I no longer see in my old way.
The fact that I only thought storytellers were worthy of writing language, was indeed a shame.
The two forms of our language, and our people, are one and the same,
You see, people think they are so dissimilar,
Yet, when one looks closely, they are actually very similar.
Like the mysterious author of Beowulf, who learned this very thing.
Why, he is a true king,
Of all language. He is one who comprehends,
That figuratively, the world, the galaxies, the universe, would all meet their ends.
If languages are kept apart.
He knew that the combination of languages, of two styles of people, was indeed an art.
I strive to be like him, and like you.
I know, my friend, what you said was true,
Everything you told me, through my life now, has been affirmed
I have learned my friend, I have learned.
I am a storyteller. I am a poet.