The Sage and the School Boy

A lad came by the Fix-it Shop
with another broken toy.
“What is to become of us,"
the old man asked the boy.

“What is?” the boy replied,
“we cannot know for sure.
My teacher says what’s truth
for me may not be truth for her.
And 'to become,' she’d say,
means what I want to be
and not, as you’ve suggested,
what God expects of me.
‘Of us’ the last words of the six,
there at the question’s end,
might mean our fates are shared
alike with foe and friend.
But since we cannot know
what was or is or is in store,
my teacher says 'we just exist--
we are and nothing more.'
And so, you see, your question
was faulty from the start.
If you had gone to school with me,
you might be just as smart.”

With that the lad took back his toy
and scampered out the door.
“What is to become of us?”the old man asked once more.
© Copyright -2008, TK, Patterns of Ink
.
.
A Sage is a sagacious person, one who knows that the simplest, most penetrating questions of life often prompt the answer man wishes most to ignore.