*****

Recorded Reading (2:14): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rh2j0ndpmv4wp77lrcyf6/Why-They-Smile.mp3?rlkey=hd8lvcftpqeorzhgfebc3lfsn&st=ovft3udd&dl=0

*****

Why They Smile

Of all this world’s religions
Of ancient patriarchy
Which, unlike those of much
More lenient matriarchy,
Don’t tend to put up with, at all,
Too very much malarkey,

In, as I say, all of the many
Patriarchal disciplines
In which schools an advancing
Acolyte the inner Way begins ~
Most don’t tend to take kindly
To artless happy grins

Until we climb the very
Highest of high mountains yet
And into that cool, rarefied
Ultra-pure altitude get:
Upon each visage, young and old,
A lovely smile is set

It’s not that they possess
So much of anything we’ve not,
Have more new conveniences,
Fast cars or latest iPhones got…
It must be something special
In their ancient schools of thought

At college will that monk attend
Twenty hours a day,
Seven days a week, without
A summer break to play,
For twenty five long years
Before he puts that school away

Thereafter to continue
Through his life ~ don’t ask me how ~
A Christian monk’s adherance
To his simple triple vow
Pales in the face six hundred of
This monk will live by now

And yet, and yet, look at them all
Merry in face as ever be!
What is it makes them jubilant?
What is it that they see?
What gives them, every one, this high
Expression of sweet glee?

Increasingly as ‘neath my watch
The passing decades go
Suspicion early entertained
Doth little but more solid grow
These monks — they have all that they need
And all they need is that to Know

*****

The poet/editor of this website is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code 72D-31S. It will take about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

International donors please contact the poet for special instructions.

Thank you for supporting quality in the fine arts.