The Didactic

From first we listen we learn more; From whence we learn, we wonder why; But learning's bore, passes wonder by, With unanswered questions of anger and war. The things they teach are what we learn; The things we learn are what we know; Yet for more we yearn, For the moral of life's show. I know of the war, I know of the fight; I know of the taxes, the hatred and greed; But why must always the hatred ignite, And make the young and innocent bleed? They talk of the metaphor, of things that are not what they seem; But why did none think to explore, If rings are just rings? The long learned equations, That solve problems with numbers; But are there occasions, On which they solve colors? Tell me stranger, where are you headed? To your wife and your family? Or to decisions regretted, That waste life's apogee. They tell me one day, I will be you, I will sit at a desk and use all I have learned; Though I think it untrue, Teacher's partiality has me concerned. For they teach us to play life's endless game To cheat and to lie, to find our own ways But why must our way always end in shame? If only to lie and pretend it all pays. For so we keep walking, For so they keep teaching, For so we keep blocking, Our need to keep reaching. So we sit in our classrooms, And absorb all the truth, And not the wonder that looms, As we waste away youth. When we all meet wonder's eventual end; When we at last accept the truth; Which we fought to expend, To the last wisdom tooth.