Tempest and Calm

What good this knowledge 

A wisdom of age 

forged in tempest and calm 

When held high against

the light of truth 

Where youth and vigour

profligate unchallenged 

As the bifold leaf

from loam emerges

Dew bound, 

New perfect, 

Tabula Rasa formed.

Yggdrasil’s scion, grafted sublime 

to the eager hand of a capricious fate.

Be calm, still the moment 

Wait for the strain to start anew

the bow must dance on sinew 

a single - perfect - refrain.

Long forgotten to an age well past

Bound in wisdom’s athenaeum.

Two pennies for the boatman

such a ignoble sum

For a song of discovered innocence, 

For a song that must be sung

For a song that in its singing

brook the story begin again.