The Past Is Knowledge; The Future, Wisdom

The Past Is Knowledge ; The Future, Wisdom

Water, like thought, calms when slowed
Into deep pools at cool quiet depths
Where mud and murk bottom settles
To clear the liquid for it's final trip .

Thought, if not allowed to calm
And settle out busy nonessential 
Clutter that keeps the mental stream
Clean, finds no clear ideas will surface .

As water makes it's long journey 
To the sea, it encounters swiftly
Moving rapids and falls that roar
Before it again pools and calms .

So too, the mind's mental travel path
Must shoot the turbulences of doubt,
Navigate trouble, and evil, and fear,
Each cascading down until calm calms.

Ever since the early dawning of time
When water appeared on the earth,
It adapted to Earth's Natural Laws :
Repeat, repeat, over and over, repeat.

In his time, upright man found a force
Far beyond his physical prowess, when
The vast utter strength of his mental
Ability raised him above common beasts.

The sun, the moon, stars, earth, water,
The air, the eagle, fire, wind, and rain - 
Man would experience and then worship.
But, as with water, strong storms disturb,

Alters flows, and interrupts water's calm;
Quite common with Nature's Earthly way.
But thinking man dreams about the future
Thus he soon becomes uncertainty's victim.

The past is knowledge, the future, wisdom.
And through time knowledge accumulates,
But wisdom is fickle, and the needed spark
Not timely, so wisdom has to be nurtured.

Water flows everywhere to the very
Same Laws Of Gravity, while thought,
Not contained within our physical world,
Flows in a stream we all seek to posses.

Ronald C . Downie