Tuur Verheyde
Folly Forever
The Fool is us
At first sight, first breath,
First of everything and always.
If you look close enough
You can see him dancing
In the babe’s glimmering
Gaze; hear his laugh
In every puppy bark.
He is there even when
Darkness rushes in
To lay its claim.
For just a moment,
It cannot and the unspoilt
Splendour of everything blazes
Through blissful blindness.
Then Time the Taker comes
To burden us with baggage,
And we tell ourselves
We have moved on,
Ripened and raised
Into firm identities and beliefs;
All of us, knowing ones, cynics,
Jaded, damaged and dead certain
Of something. All of us, still
Fools.
So it is revealed when suddenly
We stand quivering
At the threshold of awe and terror;
When catastrophe hurls us
Into the dread unseen,
Or at the end, when Fatality
Falls upon us to drag us
Into the final unknown.
At every step the Fool remains
With us and within us, from beginning
To end, there to gasp and scream
As knowledge crumbles, and we are filled
With vast spaces of ineffability.
The Fool stands firm to keep us
Warm while we are and remain
Infants in the cradle of infinity.

