A Simple Mind

In this place of tattered expectations,
The old novice at last did rise,
Hours before the dawn
When stars still ruled the skies.

Disdainful of mocking glances,
And all who’d dare criticize,
Piffle stooped to sit at table
To chance last night’s left over sprout pies.

When Master arrived after dawn,
The novices chanted their obeisance;
Twas aged beyond any reason
For such death defied any and all sense.

“You’ve nothing to fear at all!”
A grievous, now proved, lie oft told:
The young novice had been annihilated,
And Master’s now twice time too old.

But Piffle knew the dread secret
Of why PanWren had passed from life—
As he had chanted the dire incantation
His mind slipped to a memory of a wife.

Piffle swallowed hard at the held image
Of the foolish novice smoldering away,
Shattering the apprentice’s soft held thought
That today had been an ordinary day.

Escaping from his thoughts to the catacombs
The old novice took up his rusted quill pen:
“Treat not lightly with the Dark and the Dire
Or loved ones you won’t live to see again!”

The stars again claimed their kingdom,
Though sleep failed Piffle entirely—
The grounds grizzled raccoon high aloft,
Skittering a chant from the old Squire Tree:

“When thou doth play risk in life’s hocus pocus,
T’would much profit thee to never lose focus!”

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