The King's Chair

Day Eight

upon viewing the motion picture, THE KING'S SPEECH

I do not know what I was expecting
But it was the King of England!
His chair, each successive ruler's coronation seat
For the past hundreds of years
All the history, the pains and suffering
The hope, the joy, the treachery
The lives no longer present
Yet somehow there, expectant

The King's chair
Not of gold or other precious metals
Not plush with silk or valuable furs
Not encrusted with jewels and inlaid pearl
Instead a work of humble craftsmanship
Of wood intricately carved

What has happened in our world
That provides within us such overblown assumptions
What can this teach me
When even royalty had not seen wealth
To the extent modern society prescribes
We have advanced
Beyond the modest
Have inaugurated acquisition
Of things
And the mechanisms
Of industry and capacity
That profess to make
A footstool of our discontent
And still we seek,
We long
For a righteous governor