Poems
I wonder if thoughts on paper placed
do lose their life and become a trace
of the mind that, while it yet held the jewel,
concieved a capture and became a fool.
And on staring later over hours and days
of the scratching's mark did seek to praise
the wisdom of the man who probably laid
his time's sweet fruit in an inky grave.
A grave he values as his soul and true
as if it could be and create anew
he parts this best of the rest and folds
to save and reverance it and think it whole.
Until at last he finds that the paper and he
are not of the same and he must be
the lesser part who failed the test
of living the thought that was his best.
Oh, a shame doth spark him to reckon anew
why it is a pin in his pride, bears him through
to a vision both saving and one its true
his new life's essence, a higher 'you'.
Which elates him so he flys to hold
his pen's fey handle both black and cold
to begin again his circular trip
round the wheel of Karma, life's sweet whip.
gallagher
19 October 1973
Long Beach
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —