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Description
A Practiced Thing

The words, like labels, ink the page,
From youths the ancient masters grow,
Yet little novel comes from age.
For what to write, the child mourned?

Though Frost had carved the beaten path
And Faulkner found his calling there,
A diatribe on Austen's Bath
Yields less these days than Salinger.

His muscles leap where memory fails
To fill the gaps of artistry,
The tongue-in-cheek that cures what ails,
A satire, not a comedy.

Meticulous, he sculpts his craft,
The bellows burning temperature.
He strikes a blow upon the shaft
And shapes each word, a metaphor.

How many seasons pass him by
Before he feels the sting of age?
How many countless stories lie
Unturned, like stones upon his grave?

The child looks down to withered hands,
For age will serve to desiccate
And soon be silver, like time's sands,
The more the pity, time we waste.

I'll tell myself someday, I'm sure,
That what I write is worthier
Than vain pursuits that won't endure,
The same as any other would.

Description
A Practiced Thing

The words, like labels, ink the page,
From youths the ancient masters grow,
Yet little novel comes from age.
For what to write, the child mourned?

Though Frost had carved the beaten path
And Faulkner found his calling there,
A diatribe on Austen's Bath
Yields less these days than Salinger.

His muscles leap where memory fails
To fill the gaps of artistry,
The tongue-in-cheek that cures what ails,
A satire, not a comedy.

Meticulous, he sculpts his craft,
The bellows burning temperature.
He strikes a blow upon the shaft
And shapes each word, a metaphor.

How many seasons pass him by
Before he feels the sting of age?
How many countless stories lie
Unturned, like stones upon his grave?

The child looks down to withered hands,
For age will serve to desiccate
And soon be silver, like time's sands,
The more the pity, time we waste.

I'll tell myself someday, I'm sure,
That what I write is worthier
Than vain pursuits that won't endure,
The same as any other would.