Exhaustless Erudition
Three wishes from a genie,
All I'm sure about now is the
first:
Time and capacity needed to acquire
Knowledge for unsatisfied thirst.
Don't dispense with the journey,
As any knowledge should be learned.
No point in workless information:
Knowing, only valued when earned.
Ah, but rubbing lamps won't help.
Better to massage my temples.
Erudition is ever-exhaustless,
Forcing me into calm and simple.
Wading into swamps of knowledge,
Most of it, little more than
babble.
Sifting, a true thinker's cursed
task,
Time to do little more than dabble.
With paltry morsels such as these,
No learner would ever be appeased.
Yet, if I absolutely must be a
dabbler,
May I be an alpha like
Eratosthenes.*
Damned as creatures of partial
mind,
Forced to rest upon accumulation.
Answering questions to uncover
more,
Finally ending in cognitive
starvation.
* Stanza 5, verse 4: A reference to
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 BCE), the chief librarian in Alexandria who was
a geographer, poet, mathematician, astronomer, and music theorist.
Dr. William S, Kilgore
Dr. William S. Kilgore is a sociology professor residing in Houston, Texas. After nearly 30 years as an academic, William began writing poetry in 2024 while at home recovering from a kidney transplant, at the age of 56. This opened a door to a new way of contemplating things that was entirely new to him. Initially writing primarily for himself, some friends and family have encouraged him to seek publication. William began doing this in earnest in January, 2026. He has poems scheduled for the Spring issues of Westward Quarterly and foreshadow.