- Across the Ages of Wonder –

By John Herlihy

We witness across time’s ages of wonder,

Millennia hurled forth as peals of thunder.

Paths of development no one ever knew,

None ever imagined how the wind blew.

Cavemen cooked on an open-wood fire,

Sizzling meats their stomachs to inspire.

They walked, they ran, slept under stars,

Their world as unknown to them as Mars.

A lightning bolt had them utter a prayer,

For the future, they asked a soothsayer.

They saw the horizon from ragged cliffs,

A sun rose as a moon downward drifts.

Their hearts beat firm, steady, and sure,

Their souls were pagan, primitive, pure.

Their eyes did see what they never saw,

They never did understand universal law.

Caesar built an empire in a known world,

Rome spread forth as a banner unfurled.

Empires arise until they crumble and fall,

Their memory lingers on for one and all.

The Romans worshipped a bevy of gods,

Their lives with notions of good at odds.

The rich rode in chariots thru the dust,

The poor wrapped in the chains of rust.

Rome an idea with its moment in time,

To fill empty hearts with vision sublime.

As Caesar rose so did he downward fall,

With the dream that he created in Gaul.

Those of the Dark Ages roamed earth,

Wild, free from their moment of birth.

They too slept under stars in dreams,

Had little interest in history it seems.

They came, they went, they conquered,

Always on foot, thru life they sauntered.

At night, they felt bound by rusty chains,

Fire filled darkness with flickering flames.

They had no idea of the powers that be,

They only knew what to touch and see.

They filled their lives through the senses,

Leaving behind ruins and broken fences.

The ages of wonder peaked at renaissance,

An age with an air of progressive ambiance.

Moving the Middle Ages into an age of light,

Art, sculpture, architecture, an age of might.

Bridging gaps between primitive and new age,

Creating a mosaic with the deftness of a sage.

With enlightening views of the world, inspiring,

And still inspires the world long after expiring.

Welcome to the truly modern age of wonder

We do not fear lightning and ignore its thunder

Needless to say, we no longer sleep under stars

And fortuitously, we have now travelled to Mars

But in the end, what is it that we have achieved?

What inspires us from what we have conceived?

Physics has broken down the infinitesimal atom,

Evolution wiped away the sacred myth of Adam.

A primitive caveman slept peacefully under stars,

Those in Dark Ages kept mandrake roots in jars.

Enlightened minds lead the way to a renaissance,

The modern world still seeking a way to advance.

Thru time’s ages of wonder lay a miraculous field;

Seeds in the ground of soul their wonder to yield.

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(c) John Herlihy 1 December 2018