On the raft for days,I called out to Poseidon
-behold! an island
He looked up to God,Raised his staff, the sea parted
-people delivered
Wisdom of the Teacher
by Edward S. Gault.
It was forbidden to goTo the Place Of The Towers
The Spirits of the Ancients dwelt there
-and they were evil.
It was they who harnessed the Dark Powers
That would bring death to their world.
It was our Teacher who told us
much of what we needed to know.
And there was a lot, we knew, he dared not tell us
-trying to protect us.
Even us, the few who the tribe Honored with learning
-have to be protected from certain truths.
But only one would be chosen to be the Tribe's New Teacher
Most of us would be scribes.
That was fine.
Few,if any of us wanted to be the Teacher
-God, the cost!
It was Chosen Student who would go and dwell in the The Towers for a week-
Our teacher though, came back
-and many in the Tribe believed he was possessed.
Many never made it back.
That's why our tribe only has one teacher
-and he is very old.
All we could do sit and look dumbly into the fire
As he recounted all he knew of those ancient times
-horror after horror.
On the night he chose his successor (God help him!),
He told us he was going to die.
But he wanted us to know that much of what we had heard
-about the flying machines or the Great Plagues and Famines
were simply myth or exaggeration.
For example, the world as we knew it
could never have supported 7 billion people.
It was a disc, not a planet,
and the sun would continue to orbit
-as long as we made the necessary sacrifices.
Copyright 2008
13 comments:
To see for Poseidon is a delicious idea.
Your narrative poem intrigues me. I suppose we become hypnotized and fall into the trap of making the wrong sacrifices to the wrong myths under the direction of false teachers. How else to understand war?
Are we wise to have just one Teacher, one opinion, one viewpoint and forget to think for ourselves? Your first haiku is mythologocal, the second biblical. There will be differing opinions on which would be Truth and which would be Myth.
Well done, Edward!
Good old Poseidon!
Well done! We choose our myths, don't we?
Perhaps it is blind faith that finds us an island . Your teacher lines are intriguing and thought provoking.
..thoughts,emotions,myths and imagination
_many thanks..
Your myth/story is intriguing. I wrote one many years ago about a tribe's wise young woman seeing a future that could not be, also.
Truth and myth create a potent blend - interpreted by each as he deems necessary! Nice post!
Interesting collection. I love the Poseidon one. Your long piece is - as others have said - thought provoking, which is always good.
water everywhere... wisdom...i cannot help but to think of the american indians on the arrival of the white man..
Interesting thoughts - your myth poem gives me much to think about.
We are learning how to sail our small sailboat this summer so the first one is quite poignant!
myth are pass on by generations after generations but that doesn't mean they're true, at least that's what I get from the Teacher story, which reminds me of the movie, the village, where the young ones are taught to fear going beyond their home - to the outside world - they never knew the real truth, just the lies/myth that was taught to them
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