Tentatively Titled Wisdom
This started out as something quite different in my head, but this seemed more poignant when it came to writing it. All comments are welcome and appreciated as I want to improve it, but can't polish it further on my own.
Dedicated to understanding the important things in life: Love, friendship, courage and understanding. It's important to see where we've come from, and never forget, as a people as well as individuals, and to recognise the difference between true pride and false pride.
Grizzled, rippled face of oak
Sits and breathes heavy
In a chair by the fire.
Knotted fingers like a tree frog's
Clutch at the blackthorn
In a skeletal embrace.
The sunken chest heaves in the silence
Underlined dramatically
By the crackling of the
Sweet pine logs in the open grate.
Grim, lurching shadows flicker
And taunt the hunched elder,
Splashing his face with grim shadows,
Casting a skull gaunt.
Then the old lips part heavily,
wracked lungs take a breath
And begin:
“Be lavish in all things;
Poverty is for the monks.
Let your table always be rich and
May your friends never go hungry
Nor empty of good wine,
For love is more precious
Than those at life's beginnings
Can likely comprehend.
Money is the cheapest thing
In this world,
And he who cares too much for it
Will always be forever poor.
Fight your wars
For the causes you love
And fear not the falling.
Never be ashamed,
As long as you grow within yourself.
Surround yourself with music and song
And find peace where you can;
Love and respect the world
In which you find yourself
And make your time in it a treasure.”
His breathing relaxed,
The deep shadows embraced his face,
His words spoken,
He slept statuesque
In the warm red light of the embers.
His listeners quietly arose
And embarked on the rest of their lives,
Braving the cold moorland air.
Henceforth, whether under
A fire-speckled desert sky
In cumin-scented arab lands,
Or atop a Cornish cliff,
Sprayed thick with salt foam
As Poseidon thrashes
His ire beneath me,
Or on city streets and boulevards,
Surrounded by the roar of traffic
And the hum of concrete life,
That cragged shadowed face
Speaks the words that guide my mind
And in the red glow of tired embers,
I hear the voice of many long lives and ages
And listen childlike.
Dedicated to understanding the important things in life: Love, friendship, courage and understanding. It's important to see where we've come from, and never forget, as a people as well as individuals, and to recognise the difference between true pride and false pride.
Grizzled, rippled face of oak
Sits and breathes heavy
In a chair by the fire.
Knotted fingers like a tree frog's
Clutch at the blackthorn
In a skeletal embrace.
The sunken chest heaves in the silence
Underlined dramatically
By the crackling of the
Sweet pine logs in the open grate.
Grim, lurching shadows flicker
And taunt the hunched elder,
Splashing his face with grim shadows,
Casting a skull gaunt.
Then the old lips part heavily,
wracked lungs take a breath
And begin:
“Be lavish in all things;
Poverty is for the monks.
Let your table always be rich and
May your friends never go hungry
Nor empty of good wine,
For love is more precious
Than those at life's beginnings
Can likely comprehend.
Money is the cheapest thing
In this world,
And he who cares too much for it
Will always be forever poor.
Fight your wars
For the causes you love
And fear not the falling.
Never be ashamed,
As long as you grow within yourself.
Surround yourself with music and song
And find peace where you can;
Love and respect the world
In which you find yourself
And make your time in it a treasure.”
His breathing relaxed,
The deep shadows embraced his face,
His words spoken,
He slept statuesque
In the warm red light of the embers.
His listeners quietly arose
And embarked on the rest of their lives,
Braving the cold moorland air.
Henceforth, whether under
A fire-speckled desert sky
In cumin-scented arab lands,
Or atop a Cornish cliff,
Sprayed thick with salt foam
As Poseidon thrashes
His ire beneath me,
Or on city streets and boulevards,
Surrounded by the roar of traffic
And the hum of concrete life,
That cragged shadowed face
Speaks the words that guide my mind
And in the red glow of tired embers,
I hear the voice of many long lives and ages
And listen childlike.