Ripeness is All

Ripeness is All

Sam Keyes

Icarus 
Without the fated plunge 
Is but a dreary grey-haired parable,
Pragmatic unremarkable commute;
Recklessness is crucial,  
The brazen rise to kiss Apollo 
Weaves the gossamer of myth. 

In flushed freewheel of youth 
Vital abandon strains,  
Frothing fervid at the bit; 
How easy to hold living light 
While dew lies wet on years, 
Lightning racks the fertile mind,
Thunder echoes in the blood. 

Oh to be bold before life’s furnace!
Plunging ungloved hands
To snatch the burning things,
Luminous with dancing heat,
While older souls shrink back,
Scorched before and wary,
Scarred deep upon their zeal.

The cord frays at both ends, 
Delirium may seize the light 
And leaden blood alike. 
Of many cellared bottles some 
Burst volatile in raw ferment, 
Others slide to vinegary ends, 
Though everything has beauty in its time. 

Fresh, furious Galoir 
Cast life to honour’s fancy, 
Bled to death at dawn, 
Mind spilling subtle theorems,  
Succumbing, splayed weightless,
Prodigious flair flickering to black,
Suspended, neither child nor man. 

Weary, faded Lear, 
Cuts borne from being, 
Bloodied under foolish years, 
Back bowed below dumb pride,
Ripeness hanging by a thread, 
The mighty question asked by death,
Rising to cacophonous apex. 

There is a time to plough 
Youth’s fragrant field 
Beneath the unrelenting sun, 
To lay the furrows down, 
Wager callow capital 
On wisdom’s bittersweet demands,
To ring the bell that cannot be unrung.

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Sam Keyes
Writer & Photographer

Sam’s work has been published at The Gospel Coalition, BeThinking, and The Cultivating Project. Sam is a Patent Attorney and academic in the natural sciences, but words remain his first love. You can read more of his poems and essays at www.samuelkeyes.com, and follow him on Twitter at @samuelkeyes.

Photography by Egor Yakushkin