Poetic Asides Adage

 Planters

(Burns Stanza)

 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. –Greek Proverb

 

You wonder, What’s in it for me,

as I plant the seeds for this tree?

The shade or fruit I’ll never see.

Why work and plow?

It seems a waste of energy

getting zilch now.

 

Think of fruit, though planter’s now dead.

Beef you eat which someone else bred.

Traveling roads someone else tread.

All you receive

from what those before you have spread,

can you conceive?

 

Imagine children eating fruit

from trees you planted shoot by shoot,

then they dug down deep, taking root.

But now you’re gone.

What you have received is now moot.

And life moves on.