A fine Labor Day to all!
On this day, during which we celebrate the struggle of the working class, I will be featuring a poetic experiment.
I strongly subscribe to scientific and factual reality in every day life. But in art, fantasy definitely has its place. And out of all the genres of art, in literature, fantasy has had excellent applications, recently in the genre of science fiction, but historically, first most in the ancient genre of fables. The literary genre of fables first expressed in the antiquity of ancient Greece by its writers, has since been used time and again and found its most famed application in the fairytales of the Grimm Brothers. In my poem for today, that I wrote especially, I basically fused the ancient genre of fables into the modern genre of parametric poetry. The result was a lighthearted prose, with subtle witticisms, written in a story format. But foremost, it is definitely light-hearted...
It took me half a day to write this poem, so, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it...
The Tale of the FrogsIt was as Dim took note A creek through the woods which would well bode for what his wants could
For it was there, Dim thought He would find gold in plenty The riches Dim had sought since the young age of twenty
In shallow waters of that creek Dim was anxious to find Enough sparkling dust in a week To be rich beyond his own mind
So, after one morning's rise To the Creek, Dim hastily went Full of greed and none the wise The waters he found along a tent
But why this empty tent, Dim asked For abandoned it certainly seemed Dim wondered what the emptiness masked Or was there something it deemed
It was only a question of brief Quickly forgotten it was then For Dim had now taken his sieve And into the shallow waters he bent
Once, after then, twice The sieve had been lowered and raised An attempt for the thrice By now, Dim was wet to his waist
And so Dim continued for the day Fish rushed past Dim's stand As if to stay out of the way And not fall into his hand
It was gold that Dim sought But even by the afternoon sun What he had found was naught And only back pains he had won
It mattered not to Dim For he continued, just the same It didn't occur to him That other things were on the gain
It was frogs, by the dozens and small Along the creek's bank, they sat Watching Dim follow greed's call As he hunkered down and lost his hat
A brush of wind had blown it away Into the water, Dim's hat fell Dim straightened himself, cursed and swayed It was then he saw the frogs as well
Silent and still, Dim stood Upon his meeting the frogs' gaze Suddenly, as no sane man should Dim heard a voice out of the ways
You may continue, the voice said But beware that if you do With a strange fate, you will be met A fate, which met us, too
Frozen in surprise, Dim now became For it was a frog, that had spoke And further words, from the frog they came As Dim listened and his attention awoke
Us frogs you see, sitting if we may Once we were, as you, men of height Here, to scurry for gold during the day And sleep in that empty tent at night
As you, blinded we were by our greed Bent over that water, washing gold That we failed to hear nature's heed Or failed to grasp what was to behold
So upon the first evening's sunset Unacknowledged by us all Our fate was unduly met With the help of nature's thrall
For once the sun, below it sank Suddenly, into frogs we turned And hence, as frogs we sat on this bank A return to our manhood, unearned
A moment's contemplation, it took For Dim to grasp the frog's words For never had he willingly read a book But now, clear became what Tim had heard
To the horizon, Tim then placed his gaze And behold, the sunset was coming on Not another second Tim could waste Being just the greed's pawn
Quickly out of the water, Tim came On his way home, Tim then went Greed lost, and his humanity regained Tim never sought gold or riches, again
Copyright Poetic Mind August 2011