Tale
　
In the fixed notions of understanding,
in the limited recognition of truth,
time counts down demanding
old age give way to youth.
 
Around simple fires, inside and out,
there is a tale told, again and again,
to all who will gather there--about
a young and novel looking man.
 
His manner was as a rooster crowing,
petulant, dark and harsh in tone,
but if truth be truth worth knowing,
he was like all men then half grown.

I will remind the elders as it is my place, he said, or lest they soon forget, generations come to heed, embrace new ideas, and yea, some to regret. But imagination must always be taken to shake the themes of learned thought, and shame to those when it's forsaken and falls back to what the ancients taught.

But such words were too far-reaching
for the older heads who did not agree,
and, quickly they dismissed his teaching –
"for what has been will always be."
 
This tale is told around simple fires
of elders long beneath soil and stone;
a tale told of past desires,
of chewing fat and shitting bone.

J.D.Heskin

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