Amended Adages Poem by Ananta Madhavan

1. "If something is worth doing,
It is worth doing well." So an elder told me,
When I affixed the postage stamp
Before I copied out the full address.
The letter never reached the addressee.

Now that I am an elder, let me add:
'That something must first be done,
Before you hasten to decide
If it was worth the effort of making it."


2.

In was in ‘Burnt Norton', the first of ‘Four Quartets'
That T.S. Eliot wrote and rewrote,
This oxymoron quote:
"Only through time time is conquered."

I worked that out of my gnostic ‘Nous'.
What if we find that time has conquered us?


3.

"Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes one healthy, wealthy and wise":
Perhaps it was a maniac
Insomniac.