Where True Power Lies

12 October 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/10/where-true-power-lies/

The father sits enthroned on a pile of books,
self-assured and aware of nothing, smug
with a smugness that begs to be heard,
to be understood and obeyed. If he ever
was in the womb, it's forgotten now,
as his thousand clocks tick the night away
until yesterday barely inspires a moment's reflection,
and he is all, all is mind, and mind governs justly
or else.

--

Were there not flowers, no sprouts
poking through the cement of his chamber
to enliven his hoary soul, to make supple
the rigid laws, the plans of old, which have surely
expired by now? And would he have noticed if there were?

--

He could never have noticed, alone in his thoughts,
in a world of seclusion, cut off from vitality,
hope, and pain. For of course it is true
that a few of the flowers are poisoned, and therefore
to banish them seems not misguided to one
who is specially weak to poison. But are there not some
who can taste and smell with strong stomachs,
who experience even the poisonous flowers without despair?
He was not one of these, not by far, and endemic disease
is no way to bring children to life, so he settled
for civilization instead.

--

But the earth would not have it, refusing him rest,
letting pain be the constant reminder that laws are not able
to contain the wilderness. He was unhappy, and yet he
was hurt most by things that could save him
by opening (shattering) his chamber and sentencing him
to life, lived only to the fullest. But he was afraid,
so afraid that even death seemed better
than the struggle required by life. So he stayed incomplete,
as a form with no matter, a bundle of rules with no purpose.

--

The light was a surprise, coming suddenly out of some faraway sky,
to ignite the seedlings that had nestled in the earth
for long enough. Now books grown over with vines
form a part of the eternal cycle of birth and decay,
and all laws are a part of the story, not over and above it.
The father reclines with a newfound mirth, understanding at last
that his role is to tend to the gardens of life, not control them,
and never to stifle what grows, for one never knows
whether an acorn is destined for oakness,
and the forest could use more oakness, as well as
a bit of gentle order, an order that never forgets
where true power lies.