The Poetry of
Jack Scott

On Changing One’s Horse Mid-Stream

It’s said that knowledge grows
with each funeral of an elder.
So much for the wisdom,
that the aged are its favored.

Humility has no enemies,
one reason that it’s free,
but hubris has a lot to lose
by any competition,
and that is why the rules are made
in the longer runs
by the ablest racers.

God bless you, Fred Hoyle,
for being governed by your mind,
its sensible perspective.
You added what you’d found
to what you thought you knew
and solved the contradiction
by exchanging certainty
for a new adventure.

The pregnancy of pristine thought,
mothering the best invention
is fathered by unbound intention.
If first jism doesn’t do the job
there’ll be another, better mob.

Father courage,
Mother truth:
bloodlines of a better youth,
leads toward a noble prize,
unclaimed perhaps in deed
but well deserved in mind.

 

493 ®Copyright 1976 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.
From Poemystic.com