On Guard

ON GUARD

As regular readers of my blog must already understand,

I am against religion; I think it should be banned.

Individuals find solace, but I feel society

Would be better-off without it, in perpetuity.

So the idea of Guardian Angels is something I find strange.

For one thing the organisation must be tricky to arrange!

Is there one Angel per person? Or do we have to share?

Do the Angels have a choice regarding the person in their care?

If a very saintly Angel were allocated a crim,

Would she still guard him carefully and do her best for him?

Are Angels normal people who, after they have died,

Move up the ladder of success and are finally Angelfied?

Or did they start out as Fairies and graduate over time

Beginning as merely magical and ending-up sublime?

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I know I'll lose some Followers with this caustic little rhyme!

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OMAR KHYYAM

A thousand-year-old poem.

References I couldn't really comprehend.

A translation

That may or may not

Have reflected

The views of the poet, entirely.

And yet it spoke to me.

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Steeped, as I was, in biblical references,

Through my family's intense involvement,

In Christianity,

It was like a gale

Sweeping through my life.

As it has swept through the lives

Of so many others.

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It was

The Rubaiyat

of Omar Khayyam.

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Speak of poets...

Quote him.

Speak of philosophy....

Refer to his teachings.

Consider astronomy....

He mapped the stars.

Talk of algebra.....

He dissected the topic!

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What a man!

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And his message?

To live life to the full,

Without any inducements;

To embrace the present

And accept oblivion.

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Now I learn that he is barely known in Iran,

Which once was his Persia!

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What would he make of that?

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My copy of the Rubaiyat

Is thumbed and faded now.

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In a good cause.

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