Isn’t it obvious how ostentatious it is
to be so awesomely austere,
and then to assume its necessity
with such audacious authority?

Austerity is the righteous heirloom,
a father’s rebuke of his son
into the guise of maturity,
water on the dying embers of curiosity.

A pretense that shatters the dance
into glassy imitation grounded in fear.
Suppressing expression,
the spurning is non-dual.

Valor lies in the contemplation—
the chipping-away of that austere veneer,
in the play and the pliability
in the beauty and the riches below.