Wise Men and Fools

Pompous men and religious zealots rush into the fray
professing as the solid truth speculations they
determine to be necessary for things to be righted
and other fools support them because they are short-sighted.
But wisdom is as wisdom does and not as wisdom thinks.
It floats up to the surface when foolishness just sinks.
It tends toward calm and practical when flightier heads turn manic
and is irreconcilable with discord and with panic.

Fools may build vain edifices reaching to the skies
that are palatial prisons—follies in disguise.
In time of war, a bunker furnishes more protection,
offering a wiser choice to screen us from detection.
Fools raise their hands and wave at us, inviting their own end,
standing straight and rigid when a wiser man might bend.
Fools rush in where sages might not speculate,
instead letting  the evidence sit and percolate.

Sages, fools and charlatans mixed up in the fray.
For those who cannot tell the difference, now we’ll all have to pay.

Prompt words for today are wisdom, irreconcilable, practical and palatial.