People galas
Easy to chart -
Desperation ranks
Between boredom
And grief,
Spawning questions
Such as
Intelligence?
Which is not counting,
In the dark,
Bumps on the legs
Of horned toads,
But a thing
Less or more
Human -
Collective judgments,
Values of the moment
Forging the finest tool,
Universal,
Easy to grasp,
Yet once in hand
Rationale assigns it
To the bottom
Of the box
Underneath
The hammers
And greasy chisels.
So come not to grief,
Time for hot pecans,
The better wine,
Rothschild '29
Nothing is too good
For intelligent friends,
Nothing.
