A Profiteer

By Cliff Lake

 

A Profiteer

 

The profiteer was lazy.

The profiteer was stingy.

The profiteer was ruthless.

Long had he hoarded,

Little was his heart.

Were it not for the law,

His laborers might starve,

If it were not required

That they needed some strength.

He exacted revenge in longer toil,

Penalizing complaint,

Yet maintaining the exacting standard.

Would that he could employ none at all!

Thus it was that he welcomed an arrival:

An enchanter.

This sage and sorcerer

Promised riches unattainable with mere mortals,

For he would bewitch the brambles and the vines,

And these would require water only,

And the profiteer could keep his gold.

“But”, quoth the mage,

“Give not all task over to these,

For they are but helpers,

And know not limit,

Being unminded of the needs of men.”

Then did the profiteer eagerly agree,

But in his heart other plan did fester.

So, did the enchanter make his spell,

And satisfied with the animation of scrub and brush,

Left all to their own devise.

Now, when the profiteer

Had made the bramble work to his like,

Then his men he had driven off,

That he may keep all and profit none but himself.

But now did the vines and branches do more, then more,

And the spell enjoined ever more brush and bush to labor

Until they crowded even the profiteer

Out from his demesnes,

And in the cold waste,

Did that one starve,

For he had forgotten how one tends to oneself.

But the bramble struggled on for many years yet,

Until there was nothing left to do,

And none to do so for.

And the wind whistles through there,

And none know what it was all meant for,

And the gold there glitters in the sun,

And feeds no one.

And that is the end of it.

 

Cliff Lake 6/25/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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