The Natural Parameters of Patience

by Melanie Houle

An old man offers this for your discussion:
That all unfolds in its appointed hour.
Like it or not, we see, without exception,

Outwitting Nature's not within our power
And no amount of prestidigitation
Ever brought to bloom a single flower

Before its time. Years of contemplation
Suggest to me that, often, moving slower
Will nuture goals more fully to fruition.

The harvest is determined by the sower.
Impatience yields regret. By definition,
The borrower condemns himself the ower

And borrowers of time reap complications;
Cultivating haste precipitates our
plowing into unforeseen obstructions.

The mightiest of autocrats must cower
Before the rule that renders fools of nations:
Unbalance Nature's plan, the boom will lower.

An old man offers this for your discussion:
Outwitting Nature's not within our power.
Like it or not, we see, without exception,
That all unfolds in its appointed hour.

© 2007 by Melanie Houle


 


About the Author

Melanie Houle is a physician and former jeweler. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and The Raintown Review's first featured poet . Her poetry also appears in The Lyric, California Quarterly, The Aurorean, Neovictorian/ Cochlea, Tigerâ's Eye, Mobius, Pearl, Barefoot Muse, The HyperTexts, Journal of the American Medical Association and others.

 

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