Four Variations on the Value of Temperance

I

When you’re young, appearance is everything,

because surface image is all you can see.

But the most beautiful birds often can’t sing

and ugly appears the honey bee.

II

As you grow older you learn that the surface often ripples,

and underneath lies calmer water, fierce currents,

and the older body is stifled and crippled

but the spirit thrives on what vision can’t haunt.

III

When you’re old and your body’s broken like time’s spine

and your hands have searched the many planes of existence

you learn that sweet was everything, especially the rimes

of the many people you met, how they gave you subsistence.

IV

Your eyes have seen without willing ugliness, beauty’s fruit,

and you learned not to judge on appearance, because appearance is mute.

And you learned that it’s human to ponder just what might have been

if your mind had been more open, if you’d not resisted the stream.