By Lawrence “Mack” Hall

Word Count: 260

Rating: G (suitable for all audiences)

Summary: A contrast those who seek for eternal Truth and those who do not.

I.

Few of us seek for any of those keys

Of which graduation orators speak

Nor would most bother with the battery

In that old lamp of which they’ve never heard

They do not push against a golden door

They expect all doors to be opened for them

They read no books, they do not read, they feel

They only feel, they do not write, they stare

So emptily away, then back again

An empty stare into, within the self

The empty chatter of the ceaseless self

Each self in pain from arrogant self-pity

Each centers himself in a universe

His universe of the eternal now

His universe of the eternal me

And thinks not of beyond himself at all

But, still –

II.

There are those few who seek for eternal Truth

Not for some shabby metaphorical keys;

They light the lamp, they lift the lamp, and look

Not at themselves but at the light, the Light

They shyly, slowly, open the wardrobe door

They peek inside, they look, they see, they see

A world beyond their own; they step into

And through, and so they are given themselves

They seek for something else, and find themselves

A world of words and music and magic and light

And the Light is not them but upon them

The Light is the center, and gives them light

They give away themselves and so gain crowns

Unasked and so more happily received

They read and write and sing the happiness

Unasked and thus given, among the stars

III.

Forever