Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before.
The moral of this quaint example
Is do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.
On the shore did you stand
while the ship of opportunity
cruised by in waters rough?
Did you not see its shadow,
hear its siren calling
you forth into the tide?
Did you not see others, once like you,
standing on decks and
beckoning you forward?
Was the fog too thick,
your eyes too veiled,
the rain too heavy?
Didn’t you see the beacon light
searching across waves
for the newest passenger — you?
Or, perhaps, you were too weary
from landlocked life
and stony paths?
Maybe, you slept on the sand
in a coma of exhaustion
and missed the invitation?
It may be you saw all,
heard all, and chose to
remain steady on the shore
For steady is suitable
and snug like quilts in winter,
and who would fault that?
Safe is a choice as respectable
as adventure and pursuit,
logical in its hesitation
And, so it is, you on the shore,
the hermit crab in her shell,
the unexposed pearl
How sad, that pearl —
undiscovered, unappreciated,
safely snuggled in soft tissue
Oblivious to its value,
content in its prison,
alone with its iridescence
Ah, but the pearl is not you
for the pearl, in all its simplicity,
had no choice.