Folly

By Cliff Lake

 

Folly

 

The Folly.

To create,

To make new what has not been,

Or rather,

To make in imitation what already is,

And doing so,

Make Corruption.

 

Too many imitations have we done,

Some of beauty,

Some of poison.

 

Consider the mere reed flute:

In imitation of birdsong,

What brilliance we can conceive,

What heights attain!

Yet we do not supplant birdsong,

But make song of our own,

And still wonder at the creatures

That have inspired us.

 

Consider the wooden plank,

Beauteous furnishings

May adorn our abodes,

But our imitations of that resource,

Are crude, cheap, and ruinous,

Both in their production,

And in their waste:

Leeching harm into the very air,

The water,

The bones of the earth itself.

 

Yet we pursue more

The things bent out of true:

Metals and plastics,

Burning what we can,

Burying what we cannot,

Instead of fashioning more beauty

That celebrates creation,

Rather than consuming it.

 

Are we such ravening irrational beasts,

That we cannot cultivate more?

Must we make more savage and ruthless attempt

To control what we cannot make,

To subjugate rather than cultivate?

Are we such children yet?

 

Will we continue then

To break what we do not fully comprehend?

Is that to be our end

While we are yet at our beginning?

We are young,

But we do not have to continue

To act like it.

We can be better.

We should be better.

Let us be better.

 

Cliff Lake 9/27/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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