PLANNING & POETRY
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When considering word associations, you would not ordinarily think to
couple the phrases "estate planning" or "business planning", on the one
hand, and the word "poetry", on the other. Indeed, you might be very
confident that these prosaic and weighty subjects have never been treated
poetically. You are nearly correct, but not exactly.
There are few aspects of the human experience that have entirely
escaped the poet's attention. Sometimes the message seems clear,
sometimes far-fetched, and it often stretches the mind a bit to see how a
particular poem might illuminate for the reader something about his own
life and times. I am happy to report to you that estate and business
planning issues, and the underlying and interwoven subjects of life and
death, wealth and want, success and failure, ambition and complacency,
love and lust, friendship and enmity, respect and scorn, pride and shame,
joy and sorrow, and other sentiments both noble and base, have indeed
been treated in poetic form, if only seldom.
Truth be told, I know of only one serious poem that does this,
and, both because of its power and its rarity, I plan to share it with
you. The meaning of some of the lines may be better understood if you
have at least a superficial knowledge of late 19th century ship-building
and ocean commerce, but it is by no means essential --- brief recourse to
a good dictionary should get you over any rough spots. Needless to say,
the deeper the reader digs the more meaning appears, but that is just the
way it is with all poetry, save for the most trivial. Like most poetry,
it is best read aloud; the cadence is more assured that way.
The poem tells the story of --- well, let Kipling tell you
himself. Click Here.
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