Wistful Shepherd Thoughts

The old shepherd looks over the hillside in Galilee
Wistfully thinking of what brought him to sea
Was his casual choice an implanted knowingness
Or just a response to the Creator’s grand success.

Recollections are wiser, he tells himself, the moment is unclear
The distance of time brews meanings to a clarifying beer
Unconnected skies of daily life, looking back on the good and bad
Become patterns he learns to appreciate, the happy and the sad.

As a child he wore his Daddy’s shoes until he was thirteen
Discovered the depth of his own mind, the race that he had been
Now truth became known to him, replacing what he was told
By society and Mammon, betrayal’s led to distrust’s cold.

Then the years of cheerfully chasing bedroom conquests’ sweats
Drinking up the loneliness amidst the pleasure and the pets
The mating urge seems so distant now though beauty is ever there
The irresistible Eve is manifest still, the temptation a vanity fair.