Fourth HIgh Holy Day Poem-Chapter Four Book of Ecclesiastes

This is the final poem in this series. Thanks to everyone for their comments. I wrote it not only because of my reading of Ecclesiastes chapter four. A part of this poem is a memory from a man I once knew who recently died. He had achieved great success in business but poor health followed him for years even as far back as the mid 1980s. I hope you will comment.

Chapter four Ecclesiastes

I built my company

A tower piercing

 Through the dense clouds

And when I sold it

 I received a seat

A golden chair

At the table of monarchs.

I liked to walk

In my sculpture garden

Where Henry Moore and friends

Gazed upon me

And I upon them.

Ah the beauty of success!

My back began to hurt

Pain rushed through my bones

Moving me to distraction

Which I could no longer bear.

Then a surgery I never recovered from

In a reflection I could no longer

See myself which is when  

My descent began

I died a few weeks ago

And now all I do is reflect:

Eyes see time in reverse

The moments of the past

The quietude afforded me

Now which I ignored in life

The thoughts I left behind

They were too shy

To visit me in the previous world.

I found a companion here,

Kohelet, I read his book

And I felt the emptiness

The” sacrifices of fools.”

What is wisdom?

A mirage, the worship of work

The deity of my hands?

Or was it

A gust of wind that

Pressing against my face

Left without fanfare?

I read Kohelet’s book

And looked into a mirror

Of memory hearing

 The tumult of sounds and voices  

Wisdom is sight

Without eyes,

Listening without ears

I remember the house I lived in

And the house of God

I never entered.

Wisdom is a prayer

For the unborn

The youth who will

 Pick up a smooth round

Stone by the riverside

That fits perfectly

Into a hand

Whose snap of the wrist

Will cast it across

 The serene waters

To behold the ripples

That propels the stone

To its many destinations.