HIGH AND LOW FORTUNE – HAMMER, TONG, AND TOOLS

HIGH AND LOW FORTUNE

“You ask me how I know this and I can only tell you what I’ve seen.

High Fortune came upon me like a silent serpent, slithering from behind in such a stealthy manner as to conceal his true intent and to scarcely warrant my attention.

Low Fortune approached me like a titled lord, resplendent all in showy pomp and decorative circumstance, attired in the lofty regalia of finely whispered shadows spun from venomous spider silks.

Low Fortune is, you see my friend, the King of Seeming and the Prince of Cunning Craft yet I advise you eschew his long seducing and ever seductive company. For his court is all fantastic façade and fraudulent fashion and his manner and his manor are both estates of ruin.

High Fortune, on the other hand, wears no glittered crown of kingship nor rankish robes of high office nor encrusted jewels of state, he is as plain of face, as rough-built by effort, and as quiet in nature as if stable bred. Yet if on turning round by chance or calculation you find him standing nearby then reach out your hand quickly and grasp him in so firm a hold that he cannot escape, and never let him go until he promises to bless you as his friend.

Leave Low Fortune, brother, where he dwells, even if he home in temple renown or palace grand, for he is the sure slum-lord of soon-to-be sad misdeeds and the master of all unenviable fools.

Instead set your watch and wait patiently for High Fortune, for one day he will approach you in sly disguise, silent and unannounced, to see what can be made of you if you will ever dare. For he is your steadfast, stalwart, and subtle Friend and the Maker of that Fortune you truly seek.

Low Fortune churns like stormy waves, he ebbs and flows and never settles ought. High Fortune stands alone and trembles not, he shelters and secures all Men of Enterprise.”

from the Kithariune  (link)

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Since the beginning of this year I have been in one of the most productive periods/phases of my entire life as far as the creation of poems, songs, short stories, novels, scripts, and other literary works are concerned. I have recently produced hundreds of pages of new works.

 

Above is a section of my novel series the Kithariune. In this passage the Welsh Bard Larmaegeon is trying to explain the difference(s) between High and Low Fortune to his friend and companion, the Spanish Paladin Edimios. And why he should wait upon the one and avoid the other.

 

Anyone is welcome to comment upon it, of course.

LET FALL THE HARM – FIRST VERSE

LET FALL THE HARM

Let fall the harm that must now come
so men in future ages weep
not for a doom that is their own,
but for us, now long asleep,

Far better that we ever take
upon ourselves our own mistakes
than send them forth all morrow-wise
to future men for their demise,

For we had Fate and Fortune still
before our hearts grew hard and chill,
we could have tempered all our wrongs,
had we had courage all along,
but always we sidestepped ourselves,
for comfort’s sake and little else,
thus so the world is as it is,
this falls to us, not future men,

Let come the harm that now is ripe
some future age we should not slight,
with all our sins and cowardice
for unlike us they’re innocent,

They have not built these walls of woe
nor murdered children they have sown,
they have not sold their souls to debt
they may not butchery abet,
they have not terror nurtured long
they have not reckless leaders grown,
they’ve yet to quake in abject fear
their evils have not yet appeared…

(another poem of mine on modern men and our society and how I pray that we not push our evils upon future generations. Yet I know we will because our cowardice is great and had we any courage we’d be at these things ourselves.

This came to me yesterday as I cut grass. I had to stop cutting to go inside and write it. It is unfinished as of yet.)