In a worldly city, laden tall

with wealth and gold and riches grand—

a youth once dreamed a foolish dream—

to save his damaged, broken land,

a task he could not understand.

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They were wrong—but could he change?

Or was he born to laugh and die?

He could not know—but in dreams he held

a gemstone on a pedestal high,

and so he left to seek the sky.

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He journeyed to mountains, and he scaled,

the ragged cliffs, into the air

in caves he searched for what he sought,

but found no gold, no jewel there—

besides the rock, the walls were bare.

---

Though disillusioned, he waited—long!

In hopes that somehow, after all,

He’d find what he hunted—and there!

A glint and a flicker, that was all—

And ‘patience’ written on the wall.

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The next years passed; he prospered and grew

But now adult, he dreamed a second time

Of a cave, and a light, and an unknown jewel

That still intrigued him—a mystery sublime,

A light amid the rock and grime.

---

He could not wait, though winter reigned:

And yearned to leave that very night,

But for the memory of the wet cave wall—

Reading patience—and near out of sight

The tiny facet, straining towards the light.

---

He arrived in summer—delayed again

To help an old man on the road,

His mount he gave him, and walked the way

That mountains grew and rivers flowed,

Where first his knowledge was bestowed.

---

The cave was changed—was wider now,

And full of light upon its floor,

The jewel had chipped—and on the wall,

Mercy was carved above the door,

The old man had given him one more.

---

When years thereon he returned to it,

The door grew wider, the jewel free,

Away from bondage, the cocoon of the cave

A shaper of the boy’s destiny—

What it was always meant to be.

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So life and wars and world strode on,

The man—he sinned and saved and killed—

He loved and lied—but knew by then,

On mistakes and lessons learned to build,

That soon his jewel would be fulfilled.

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An old man walked a lonely path—

A hundred years since first he came!

A perfect jewel in wrinkled hand—

Made from courage and made from shame.

And the cave—he left without a name.

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6 April 2006