The Calf Path
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home -- as good calves should,
But made a trail all bent askew
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
That trail was taken up next day
By a dog that passed that way.
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too
As good bellwethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about,
Ad uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because 'twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed (do not laugh)
The first migrations of the calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Trailed that zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near two centuries dead.
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind
They work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done
They follow in the beaten track
And out and in and forth and back
And still their devious course pursue
To keep the path that others do,
But how the wise old wood gods laugh
Who saw that first primeval calf.
Ah! Many things this tale might teach --
but I am not ordained to preach.
Sam Walter Fosse (1858 - 1911)
(It's punctuated in different ways in the two versions I have.
I am not sure as to which is original. Apologies to author(s)!)
--"Dr. Scott J. Simmerman" <74170.1061@compuserve.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>