02-26-2022, 10:14 AM
Rule
Fear, all feel:
the wealthy fear the poor,
the well-off fear becoming poor,
and the poor fear death.
Cold and heat, too.
Even the wealthy go outside
to a heat wave or a cold spell
every once in a while.
Pain is inevitable.
No amount of medicine
will remove it.
Same with grief.
And desire, while not universal,
is at least comprehensible
even to those it cannot touch.
But hunger:
the poor are forced to feel it
while the wealthy or well-off
forget it even exists.
Try it sometimes:
don't eat
and know you won't eat
soon enough.
Then live it weekly.
Wrote this when I was struggling to fast yesterday. Well, fasting is always a struggle. Not really a "poem" so much as an excuse to talk about fasting and monastic rules and crap. Y'all try and follow such ridiculousness? My rule right now is fasting Wednesday and Friday (which means eating once a day, somewhat minimally, just to be able to stomach one's daily drugs), and no meat from Cheesefare Monday to Easter, excluding the Annunciation and Palm Sunday -- in a household that eats meat through Lent, and rarely has any vegetables, following a stricter rule is currently nigh-impossible, and with how I'm surrounded by Roman Catholics and Protestants, I simply cannot follow the Revised Julian Calendar for the Easter reckoning.
Fear, all feel:
the wealthy fear the poor,
the well-off fear becoming poor,
and the poor fear death.
Cold and heat, too.
Even the wealthy go outside
to a heat wave or a cold spell
every once in a while.
Pain is inevitable.
No amount of medicine
will remove it.
Same with grief.
And desire, while not universal,
is at least comprehensible
even to those it cannot touch.
But hunger:
the poor are forced to feel it
while the wealthy or well-off
forget it even exists.
Try it sometimes:
don't eat
and know you won't eat
soon enough.
Then live it weekly.
Wrote this when I was struggling to fast yesterday. Well, fasting is always a struggle. Not really a "poem" so much as an excuse to talk about fasting and monastic rules and crap. Y'all try and follow such ridiculousness? My rule right now is fasting Wednesday and Friday (which means eating once a day, somewhat minimally, just to be able to stomach one's daily drugs), and no meat from Cheesefare Monday to Easter, excluding the Annunciation and Palm Sunday -- in a household that eats meat through Lent, and rarely has any vegetables, following a stricter rule is currently nigh-impossible, and with how I'm surrounded by Roman Catholics and Protestants, I simply cannot follow the Revised Julian Calendar for the Easter reckoning.
