The Naked Troubadour

The Tarnished Lotus [poem]

Posted on Mar 23, 2011 Updated on Mar 30, 2017

Once upon a time,
a Golden Lotus nestled in
this throbbing heart of mine.
But over all the years of bloom
and fruits upon the vine,
so quietly it tarnished
and lost its pristine shine.

At first I didn’t notice
or feel the subtle shift;
equivalent geographically
to continental drift,
in which the surface stays the same:
until an earthquake happens,
there are no signs of risk.

So now a question haunts me —
it stalks me night and day:
Why should glimmer ever have
to dull and fade away?
No longer standing in the middle
I pondered long and hard
to find the answer to this riddle.

Life-choices that are taken
will be perfect in their time.
But hindsight must our teacher be
if we want our lives to rhyme;
for it is only in the moving on
that we can understand
what has already gone.

© 2011, Alan Morrison