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You may have heard the remark on occasion, “Oh I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that room.” Well, back in my college days I spent some time considering that idea, and ended up writing the following poem about it. I ran across it the other day while going through some old papers in the basement and thought I’d put it up here. Hope you enjoy it.

Ode to a Fly

Secrets told by little girls

Dreams of love and gifted pearls

Men combine and plans create

Designs to rule, their passions hate

The discoveries that shape our lives

Forgotten pacts of old

The artist creates his masterpiece

An embrace two lovers hold

These things take place behind closed doors

No secrets to reveal

Yet watchful eyes these acts do see

And secrets quietly steal

Oh, omniscient eyes, pervading all

How dearly I long to learn

The wonders of your vigilance

The truths you can discern

Absolutely inconspicuous

Such advantage do you know

The world so carelessly to view

Yet never yourself to show

Yet as I look into those eyes

There is something more I see

A frustration I can’t comprehend

 A longing to be free

I ask the eyes to please explain

Whence comes their agony

My lot, dear friend, the eyes reply

Is one of great irony

The world is mine to view, ‘tis true

And no wall can block my sight

But for all the ways I know to win

I must always sit out the fight

The world, with the knowledge I possess

Would know its ills no more

The wisdom is mine, but not to share

I am rich, but I am also poor

I left the eyes in flurried though

As my envy lost its sting

And a thought, as though from trumpets blast

Started in my ears to ring

‘Tis better to live with ignorance

And change that which I might

Than the answer for all wrongs to know

And hold no power to make it right.