The Life of an Idea

Like a babe in utero,
Idea runs a maze,
From synapse to synapse,
in search of light and days,

Steps into the footlights
to try out for a role,
To bare before an audience
its mentor’s soul.

Recites its part before
a faceless, restive crowd,
No hidden prompter
needed or allowed.

Speaks in words, in sentences,
and punctuation,
Demonstrates its form
and use in conversation.

Scene one, a duel joined.
Status stalks its prey,
Change, and fear of change,
both haunt it night and day

With mortal wounds,
it pleads its case while dying.
Idea wins the day
with hardly any trying

Now public property,
Idea descends like rain,
No path, no charted course,
no heavenly domain.

The world its field to sow,
to till and reap,
Pauses not to wrap its wounds,
to lie down or to sleep

Moves freely with no need
for fixed foundation,
Stakes a claim
in mankind’s store of information.

It passes, late or early,
unlamented.
Idea-cide’s a crime
not yet invented.

Reviewed by practiced critics,
exits the stage in scorn,
a star is born!

Ideas flex their muscles and,
short or long of breath,
Survive to stand alone—
or die a natural death.