Spectacle over Scrutiny
We rush to raise the gilded, gleaming throne,
Before we ask what clay the structure bears;
We throw our garlands at the latest show,
Too dazzled by the flash to see the snares.
In days of old, the anvil felt the fire,
And coin was weighed and tested in the palm;
They traced the roots of every new desire,
And time, not spectacle, bestowed the calm.
But now we crown the pageant, not the man,
And wave our awe at riches born of air;
Until the pedestal reveals the fraud,
And cracked glass shows the hollow centre there.
So let us hold the laurel just a while,
And turn a harder question in the mind:
Not “Who shines brightest?” but “What honest work,
What truth, what sweat, lies underneath the shine?”
For accolades are owed to what is true,
Not fleeting mirrors dressed in fortune’s guise.
Ask first from whence the heavy coffers grew,
Lest we applaud the shadow, not the wise.
©TheVillageBoy.
(The figure man who loves alphabets)
