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TITLE: Vanity
By Norm MacDonald
11/06/07
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Thank your for you keen observations. I had thought about the quotes around "gift" and was a bit undecided. I will revisit that. I appreciate your thoughts.

Ben had also commented about punctuation. I hope this does not sound too cocky, but very few of my poems have punctuation. I guess you could say that is part of my "style". Whether that is good or bad I am not certain, perhaps as I post more poems and secure additional comments I will sort that out.
VANITY

Love and hate
Good and evil
Like silent chessman
Stand side by side
Only the color of the squares
Is different (1)

Wanting and taking
Pulling and tugging
The divine and the demonic
Each choosing the same one
Only one can win the prize

Is it vain to think my soul
So great a prize as that
My gift, my talent, my skill
Such a wonder as to cause
A cosmic struggle of such proportion

Vanity says Qoheleth
Emptiness and striving after nothing
That is what they do –
In my mind
And in no other universe I suppose

To think that either needs me
Is to diminish their capacity
To believe that either wants me
Is to belittle their eternal “gift”
It is vanity





(1) Calvin Miller, The Singer,I( InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2001) 26
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