Icicles

ICICLES A man may eschew crass wealth of cash And devote self to developing the mind. Knowledge grew from my mind’s branches like icicles: Facts and figures were added and became out of date, Frozen in time, irrelevant to ongoing life. Old age caused some of them to fall off, And eventually they all melted. University degrees dropped and fell In the weakening degrees of frost: And an old man asks why he bothered To amass such temporary wealth of ice Which had no more value or permanence than the crass cash, And was maybe just as cold. ……………………………………………………………………………………………… NOTE Like many older people, I am starting to lose memory capability. Stuff about Pythagoras, Wordsworth, Corinthians 13:1, or the Kuiper belt, once so seemingly important, is disappearing from my memory.