Amilcar Unleashed

Amilcar Unleashed

Amilcar the hermit,
being of a reflective disposition
and, moreover,
having a natural bent towards solitude,
found the demands of his profession
too easy for his talents.
“It’s no sacrifice,” he said,
“to meditate forty days in the desert -
‘tis more my preferred inclination.
Enlightenment must surely be
reward for challenge endured,
the result of privations suffered.”
Having these thoughts
did not make his job any easier.
The obvious alternative,
to live a life of debauchery
and wild abandon,
proved beyond his capabilities,
leading him to the proposition that,
if enlightenment must be obtained
in such a fashion,
he was doubtful that he wanted it
after all.

As can be imagined, this impasse
left poor Amilcar without a course of action
to be attempted and,
for many days, he wandered
both physically and spiritually
in the wilderness of indecision.
In the end he decided that,
if his natural talent was to be a hermit,
then a hermit he should be,
without thought of reward
or enlightenment but merely
to be true to himself.
The next day he woke
with a smile on his face,
beaming at the world with realisation
and joy and relief.
Many said that he never
looked more like the Buddha
than at that moment.


Line Count: 42
Free Verse
For A Story-Poem Contest, August 2020
No prompt but may not exceed 50 lines.