Touched
If my poetry moves you to witness to stranger
Just know that I'm touched that you're "sharing my ride,"
For the fact is that giving can be fraught with danger,
But those that it calls feel much warmer inside!
I have so little knowledge to call my invention
Some came from my parents, from people I've met
But the gift of the spirit defies all convention
It's holy, profound, precious gift without debt.
Even muse I call gift, for it waters my soul's growth,
An alternate path that the spirit can take
Truth that's flavored by strangers, by loved ones, I've seen both,
Fresh air never sweeter, Grace purges mistake!
Spirit truth has no owner like jewel or gold dust,
It's one with Creation; you'll know it by feel.
Although Midas (1) got gold, all his love turned to soul rust,
The gift of the Spirit is simply to heal!
Brian Johnston
June 13, 2017
Poet's Notes:
(1) From Greek mythology - Wikipedia
"One day, as Ovid relates in Metamorphoses, Dionysus found that his old schoolmaster and foster father, the satyr Silenus, was missing. The old satyr had been drinking wine and wandered away drunk, to be found by some Phrygian peasants who carried him to their king, Midas (alternatively, Silenus passed out in Midas' rose garden). Midas recognized him and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with politeness, while Silenus delighted Midas and his friends with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus in Lydia. Dionysus offered Midas his choice of whatever reward he wished. Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold.
Midas rejoiced in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched an oak twig and also a stone; both turned to gold. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he touched every rose in the rose garden, and all became gold. He ordered the servants to set a feast on the table. Upon discovering how even the food and drink turned into gold in his hands, he regretted his wish and cursed it. Claudian states in his In Rufinem: "So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid, and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer."
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