Stack - Simon Rennie

I
Here are the roots of the tree of knowledge.
Every leaf takes sustenance from their
Intrepid delvings into unknown soil,
Their widening boundaries of the edge
Of the possible, their decades of care,
Their exhaustive paean to incessant toil.
But for the labour of long-dead minds, where
Would even the flimsiest pamphlet be?
Years of learning and etymology
Are the secret story that all words share.

II
These are more than just dusty aides memoire,
Redundant tomes from an obsolete age;
Here lie the Principia of all things,
The first utterings of the way things are.
The writer may be made a fool or sage
By posterity’s take on what fate brings
But each idea is more path than cage
And there are pleasures in false diversion.
Truth is not all one gets from immersion
In the rivers that flow from ancient page.