In my youth
When I thought I was clever
To see truth as a one-liner
I did not well understand
That there are indeed some truths—
And worthy ones at that—
That cannot be well stated
In but a single line.
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He is Wise
He is wise
Who understands
That he swims at his own risk
Even when there’s a lifeguard—
From My Son, James
James wrote this in 2016, at 13 years old—for Father’s Day, I suppose. I had forgotten about it until it came up in my FB memories. He comments on some things I had done quite on purpose. Glad it worked out so well!
Continue reading From My Son, JamesHow Difficult for the Creature
How difficult for the creature
To want to submit himself
To the will of his Creator—
And harder still—
Having decided to want it—
To manage to live that way!
On the Great Highway of Learning
There are many exits
On that great interstate of learning—
The end of which cannot
Be reached in a lifetime.
Welcome to my blog!
There are hundreds of posts and pages here, with all kinds of material. This home page shows the latest posts, and they tend to come in waves. So if you should see lots of poetry posts in a row, or lots of lengthy articles on this or that, please don’t assume that that’s all there is to the site! You can peruse the links above to get an idea of what all is here. And if you find the site interesting, I hope you’ll go read my “About” page here.
Enjoy!
Jack
Bits and Pieces
Great learning seems to be
Made of three things—
Each harder than the one before.
The first is in gathering
The bits and pieces of fact
That anyone can collect
Along the way though life.
When Will the Ruckus Be Over?
When will the ruckus be over?—
This churning chaos of a world
In which our lives have been set
And in which we have been tossed
To and fro all our lives,
Sometimes hurt in innocence,
And sometimes in guilt,
And most all the time,
Wishing for something more peaceful?
Will it go on forever?
Will it never stop?
I Am Quite Good at Failure
I am quite good at failure.
I’ve done it many times.
The things I’ve tried have often died
And crushed some dream of mine.
But still I keep on going,
Come failure as it may,
For I have found, while digging ’round,
Some gold along the way.
So I am not complaining,
As some may well suppose.
For what’s the thorn of failure’s scorn
When one may have the rose?
I fail, but I’m no failure,
For I am gaining still.
The failure’s he who is not free
To risk another spill.
I hope you’ll take this lesson
And learn from your mistakes,
For there’s just not a dumber plot
Than mindless trying makes.
My thanks to my wife, Kay, for her help with the difficult fourth line of this poem.