The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine, Famous Poets and Poems, Litera, Poetry Life & Times and Freshet

Keywords/Tags: Stoops, folly, wisdom, children, wise, know, knowing, understand, understanding, life, death, grave, years, dark, leaves, trees, prince, toad, kiss, fairytale, coffin, fortress, bloodletting, maple, syrup

Does the moon know?
That people seek it for support,
For hope and companionship?

Does it know that to us,
It's much more than just a ball of
Rock floating in darkness?
It has existed for billions of years,
Orbiting us ever loyally
Always the faithful servant dragged around by gravity
And yet it does not know
That the people who trampled on its skin
Blemishing its once-spotless soil,
The people who pierced its flesh with a flag
Of arrogance,
Vanity
And conceit,
Look to it for guidance in their selfish,
Mediocre lives.

But now imagine if it did know.

If it had feelings like the ones we pride ourselves in having - or not having.
Would it look to us for assurance too?
Feeling proud that it can reach such a deep level of 'understanding'?

Would it love our mysterious glow, created not by
The Sun, but by our artificial light and rivers of blood?
Would it feel pressure, always having to help us?

Or would it soak up our love
Delighting in our mostly undivided attention
Secretly knowing that even though it is..
Small,
Uninhabitable,
Lonely,
It will live longer than us
And the technology that was never meant to be in the Universe's gift that is Earth in the first place?

Maybe they're onto something.
Maybe they know.
That there's something to me
That's not worth knowing.
And it's better off
If i'm alone.
Maybe they're doing everyone else a favor.
It's best to stay away.
There's nothing but heartbreak here.

Gates imagined in times

past
open here and we pause

is this the life well spent,
or the life un-examined?

Are we Faustian Fellows or mere mortals
dreaming
rockstar vibes on the boulevard

select/apply
brakes. (witness, we saw it coming)

What good can come from this?
Is
here some secret place?
What keeps its secret here?

he emerges rather as a master syncretist of widely divergent materials and as a devout theopantist

From <https://muse.jhu.edu/book/37533>

Artistic Intelligen-seers build cumputorionic
putahs
for the pew-trade-ification
easy as pi t' lie about knowing
as goatphorgoneconclusions, leading
sheepish men astray

afar from the madding crowd
screaming out loud
for christ's sake (really. What's that mean?)

Christmas is christ's cause, I would think,
given proper cause determining algorythms at some time after my

toddling twos expecting, child-like
survivability
equivalent -- equal in balance factor
twixt why and how and try and
umph

needed on the uphill side of every vibe.

Has Christ mass more meaning than
anointed (oiled-to shine-or-burn, per hap)
message/medium,
a class of good
news, a whole bunch of new good
ideas for things,
witty inventions with the best of intentions,
Christmas Time!
Peace,
on earth, good will to
ward men,
the idea of god as truth life and the path to next; and man, wombed and un, recon-

conciliated, with no con-sessions to bogus-science but to learn

to use the food we eat. learn
to chew our mushrooms with a touch of lemon,
lemon tree, so pretty but impossible to eat,

Ah, why,
ya jus'asker what she knows,
she's sure to show you
wisdom wisps, entangled in your hair…

take a taste,

now, hear this, peace, I give, I loose
as
oil on the water, but with the best imaginable
outcome

not good as men measure;
good as you measure good,
good ideas you make do
good, sometime

thereafter your arrival as the hero in your story.

A lie? You see through it,
and you know the reason why.

An act? Isn't working,
and you won't let it distract.

Pain? Not just sadness
but you feel like you were slain.