Gymnosophists
Pliny, the elder, heard
About beavers
And their magical testicles
From a vagrant
Russian merchant.
On his bestiary
He also praised unicorns
And the naked
Gymnosophists
Of the far Orient;
The vagabond sages
Who only ate
Once a year
And beans at that!
(Like my mother used to say:
“Everywhere in the world
People eat beans.”)
One of these hierophants
Spoke for trees
And interpreted
Their seed spread
As omens.
(Some truth to that:
Seed pods harbinger
Drought and merry times.)
Yes, Pliny
Wrote what he heard
And wrote much of it
So much that my toponymic
Ancestral brethren,
In Hispania Tarraconensis,
Wanted it all that wisdom
For themselves.
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