What Now?

But I am the One of Three!
Dropped the words out window barred by Little Pig.
I am the one who builds so strongly with the key

Of rugged self-support accepting not a fig
Of trust in cooperation or belief
In the help of others or in a rugged rig

That I myself have not become the master.
So now you jump me as of night like a thief
With religion springing up as a back-caster

To words of Holy Writ on but a single leaf
Of the book of many leaves and even books
With the hope I burst to sorrow and to grief.

Your power I remark as I search your crafted looks
For a snicker or a squirm betraying fraud
Of a piglike manner catching me with hooks

You brace of wily wolves. Am I to laud
Your clever ruse—admittedly beyond
The realm of clever, thus forcing me to nod

To its unique position that has dawned
With gleaming warmth upon my soul—
So, yes, of such a feeling I am fond.

Your Jesus spoke of fruit that one might gather to a bowl
To be eaten if found good or thrown away
According to the nature of the tree that left its toll

Of good or bad drawn up from brecciate clay.
Build your orphan house and one for widows too
If you want me to be eating of your tray.

An accident you say? Upon a lake?
Turning littlest ones who sat with friends upon the shore
Into orphans lacking family who would take

Upon themselves the monumental chore
Of praising, scolding, feeding, molding,
Until the waifs had acquired the needed lore

To make it in this world? Folding
My hands in honor as I hear
The waifs were adopted by the friends upon the shore.

So you love ones in the circle as you shun the ones outside—
Ah, yes—you speak to me of what you call the “truth.”
I seem to lose my balance just a tad.

One leaf, or two, not writ by human hand alone,
And you believe it all—
Every page and every scrawl—

Have you any fun as the pages make demand?
Have you reason more than words upon a page?
Time, you say, is needed for one to take a stand

Upon a budding life unfurling like a sage
Learning book and learning love
And learning to release the urge to turn to rage

Whenever ones around us press and shove.
I am the one true pig! And you?
Pigs too? Afraid of wolf and seeking what is true?

I trust myself because quite simply I am me
And I gather thoughts concerning you merely tentative,
Says the self I know that—well, okay—laughs in glee

As it sometimes plays a joke on me or sobs a sad adieu
To the goodness slipping through its sieve.
Trusting in the talk of tutors twists me—turns me—
tantalizes—

My will is moved by a mass of vying woo
And runs from fret but seldom rises
To the thoughts that rouse renown—

I will screen away your silly clever guises
From any truth found in your up and down
As you lionize your enterprises.


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