Skip to main content

Penned

Your company was your agenda
Each man a tally
And when each mark was made
You in turn felt comfort at your solitude
Self-satisfied by your false candor
Still, no mention was made of empathy
No interest found in trust
Only black on blank white

It was not until you found
That few of these tasks
Favored your pen
Writing away souls in dark contract ink
That you saw yourself in color for the first time
Lying flush against a blank page

Pen in hand as you mulled your two dimensions
You began to feel within yourself the third
And baffled by the bindings at your flank
You rose and wrote on the page anew
Giving full voice to a story left untold
Tears drinking in the words
As they splashed down through a dark lighting fast
With the comfort found in surrender

By this new task’s end
You peered at your tome
Thick with meaning
And sat now, open to the trusted pupil
Read by Friend and friend alike
Only to turn anew to a blank slate, pen in hand
To make men of marks
To write light into the shadows
Of those who, like you, sought to remain unseen

For from the fragile pages of your own dust-laden story
You learned that to read
You must be read
That to write
You must let the pen fall
And that man’s character is deepest
When it is most exposed

Besides
the ink left wet on your epic’s page
Is not your own
But was written by the hand of Another

Adjusting now your glasses
You lean in to write the lives
Of men who
Heretofore
Were simple marks
Giving full voice to stories
Left untold.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to ...
2 comments
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Comparative Medical Care

One thing I'd like to understand is why there is such a difference between medical costs here and those in Haiti. At the time the book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written, in 2003, it often cost $15,000 to $20,000 annually to treat a patient with tuberculosis, while it cost one one-hundredth of that-- $150 to $200-- to treat a patient for the disease in Haiti. Even if the figures aren't completely accurate, the sheer difference would still be there. Indeed, the United States pays more per capita for medical care than any other country on Earth. My first guess for why the disparity exists is that there is a market willing and able to pay more for medical treatment, so suppliers see the demand and respond with higher prices. According to at least one doctor (go to http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_the_cause_of_excess_co.php), part of the reason is administrative prices here. People here have a higher standard of living, and so the cost of care is shifted to ...
2 comments
Read more