End of the Ball
When I was a young,
adventurous lad,
I walked off the
straight, wide road.
I wanted to see the dark
and unknown -
the untraveled and the
untold.
The thorns and the
briars
and the poisonous
tendrils
were thick and
unmercifully cruel
as I picked my way
off of the highway
that had brought me so
far from my home.
I struggled long and
hard,
and it was painfully hot
in the sun on that
mid-summer’s day.
Many a time, at the
sting of a briar,
I thought, “What a fool
you are.
Patch up your wounds,
let your mind not stray,
and return to your
‘civilized land’!”
Determined, I was, to
finish my quest
for adventure and
wondrous sights anew.
I pushed myself further
and deeper
and harder than ever had
I done before.
Stinging and itching and
sweating and panting,
I stood in the midst of
a court.
The royal subjects were
majestic giants
who long had attended
this ball,
and I - just a flash,
like the swat of a fly
that happened to alight
on the wall.
Thereupon the awesome
thought occurred to me,
that I alone am just nothing to these,
but with my fellow man
and tools at hand,
we can swat flies… or we
can cut down trees.
Either or neither, it is
up to us.
The potential is in our
hands.
We can rape the Earth,
pillage her stores,
and “make use” of every
scrap of her land,
but perhaps, instead, we
should be respectful and courteous,
and we should honor the
court’s guest list.
After all, when
intruders drop in and start a brawl,
and the guards are
summonsed to arms,
the music stops, the
crowd thins out,
and thus comes the end
of the ball.