by john clare
Upon the death of the Seer his will was read,
To my heirs hear now these words from the dead.
If my wealth you would at last possess,
First you must pass this consuming test.
Memorize the entire book of Job,
And my untold riches you shall finally hold.
Possessing not a Bible the heirs were most distressed,
How could he place this burden upon the dispossessed!
So out they stomped to purchase the unknown word,
This was the cruelest inheritance they ever heard.
Forty-two chapters! Why we will die before we memorize,
So they began, though the task they did despise.
By chapter three they opened their mouth and cursed the day,
But the lust of riches kept them memorizing away.
Chapter seven and the months went by the appointed time,
Three miserable souls living like hirelings.
A year to chapter ten and their souls were weary of life,
The bitterness of soul, complaints and strife.
Chapter fourteen two years hence and troubles full,
Man born of woman is of days too few!
By seventeen they cried their days extinct, the grave was ready,
The wealth from the Seer they never would see.
Five years it took to chapter twenty-four and the Almighty,
The hidden things began to reveal and they thought less of the money.
Surely there is a vein for the silver we mine!
Surely there is a place for the gold we fine!
By thirty, no longer young, most held the old Seer in derision,
Why make the Memory of Job the terms of the decision?
Seven long years and their hearts trembled and moved out of place,
Little did they realize it was less the mammon and more of grace.
By thirty eight and ten years after the word did wend,
They now memorized the word of the God in the whirlwind.
The time of the wild goats upon the rocks were gone,
They were as new hinds ascending to their mountain home.
The day came in year eleven to draw forth the word,
The lawyers and in-laws were astonished at what they heard.
We at one time were as Leviathans, consumed with hooking mammon,
We detested this Seer who dared dangle this cord down.
But as the years went by and we read beyond the book of Job,
We found the riches offered were not at the end of memory road.
And not from a man in the land of Uz,
Whose name was not Job, but the Son of Man!
And we eternally thank the Seer for this wealth we now possess untold!
Thus the inheritance was dispersed to the widows and those unable to pay,
And so they lived, being old and full of days.
