Spartan Riches
by Odin Roark

Creation asks not for center stage

How plentiful these quiet treasures
Demanding not a price
Void of glitter
Gaff
And loud acclaim drowning
Senses
Reason

Imagination pursues instead
Honesty’s nod
The up and down gesture
Everyday patrons volunteer
On discovering virtuosity’s subtle essence

Just as a flower needs but sunshine and moisture
So too the Van Goghs of everyday living
Patiently await man’s simple willingness
To emote with the light of a smile
Perhaps even tears
Knowing as in nature
Creative efforts spawn
Reciprocal wavelengths of appreciation
Finding respite wherever
An honest heart and mind’s tuning fork awaits

Often

Creation senses not the obvious
Artistry’s honorific slips
Obliging a personage quest
Unaware resultant luminary trappings
Often engender insecurities
Petrifying life’s inner sanctum
That place where inception seeds the unknown
Bestows lasting memories
Where both a mother’s caress
And the brush strokes of oiled color
Add to the canvas of expectancy’s
Freely shared gifts and rewards

Too late at times

Inspiration succumbs to notoriety’s demands
Obliging a servitude to fame
Risking enslavement
Either to gilded prisons
Or the bridled razor wire of power
Needing to gallop down a home stretch
Willingly adding to the blood-laden turf
Determined the day’s finish line
Will provide yet another carrot
To satiate the bestial appetite for superiority

Fortunately

A meaningful number
Manage to avoid a system’s pandering
Obviating trophydom’s trap
Existing solely as creation’s flow
Appeasing those whose hearts and minds
Seek but revelation of impact
A seeding of possible enlightenment
Respecting the virtue of namelessness

So goes the Spartan riches
Accumulating with anonymous authenticity
Giving it’s own reciprocal nod
Back to that which inspires creativity

All without demands

Without price