They must be Gods, I thought.

How else

did they learn so well,

while I could not

remember anything?

 

They must be gods, I thought.

How else could they

write, write, write in halls,

where floors squeaked

and sun beams

danced the motes of dust?

The scratch of pens on paper.

 

They must be gods,

or I’m a fool.

Yes,

that must be it.

For off they went

where clever people

gain letters.

And I was left to

work my hands.

 

My mind still dwelt

where words were spun

but that was not to be,

for I was a fool.

So, as with those

who spurn our love.

I trampled on the memory

of flowing speech;

cascades of sounds

that filled the mind

with tears, love and laughter.

That world was not for me.

I must forgo it.

 

Then through the agony

of an ailing heart.

The words, my friend;

dying piece by piece,

gave back to me,

surfaced in my mind

and I was whole again.

 

Now these animated

living pebbles

in the brook of life,

roll to make music

in my heart.

 

They spring, as

water from the living rock,

to chuckle or to stab.

I hardly know from where.

 

Yes they were gods.

The lucky, clever many;

who sailed the seas

of knowledge, years ago,

when I was a fool.

Because I could not learn

the way they did.

 

 

David Garlick, Victoria, August, 1995