Sage
(with apologies to Shakespeare for imitation of his Sonnet 116)
Let me not in the carriage of false thought
Be carried far away. Sage is not sage
That travels book lost mazes ever fraught
Or runs the concepts lock'd in mental cage.
Rather; it is the sailing scrutiny,
That rides through storm-wracked seas and is not broken;
It is the map and compass, to a destiny
Of no fixed place, that lets the heart be woken.
Sage has not thyme's taste, though many savours pass
And each invokes a longing, or disgust.
Sage is time grown up and growing still in practise
Towards all that lives, the growth of love in trust.
And yet with all the errors I have made
I can never tell... whether I am sage.