WISDOM

(As far as I can describe it from the vantage point of my 34^th year)

     Wisdom was my greatest pledge

Fair knowledge sharpened by life’s edge

     Such weaponry was my aim.

So joined I unto the war,

     Which sapped youth’s flower to the core

And forever changed my name.

    Glory and honor, strength and might

A man of God clothed like men of night

     A soldier I was born.

Unto the sands, ‘neath the banner

     Clasp the hands, slick red from the manner

Of death this battle has brought them for me to mourn.

     Forever for me to mourn.

     Glory and honor, these are the dead’s

And forever their badges shall be.

     Alone and forgotten, are the soldiers still living

By all but their painful memories,

     And by a Chaplain who writes a verse.

Who, remembering, writes a verse.

     Why are the living to mourn those laid low?

Should they not live before they cannot?

     Why are the dead so peacefully so,

When it’s their deaths that cause the living to rot?

     Oh wisdom!  Why is it pain and life that buys you?

Once purchased I am broken an old.

     Oh wisdom, what lessons would I recant to,

Now that the cost of tuitions been told?

     If any, it would not truly be wisdom I’ve gained, but lies

Because your attainments are treasures worth keeping.

     The high price worth the prize

And the benefits worth all the weeping.

     The eternal benefits worth all the weeping.

     Wisdom was my greatest pledge

Fair knowledge sharpened by life’s edge

     Such weaponry was my aim.

Yet I fear…

     It shall never be my claim.