At First and Final

At first and final
Readings, the sutra
Appears unusually
Cryptic, even for
The mystical
Christian, Sufi,
Kabbalistic, or Vedic
Traditions, even

Among the earliest
Cuneiform, hieroglyphic
Oracular nonsense.
What is this? The sensible
Reader on encounter
With such reeking,
Lung-choking, tent-filling

Incense, might ask. Fair
Enough. We must uncover
If we hope to discover.
Here, literally translated,
Word for word, in the five
Word verse of the old school,
Following the strict rule,

Perhaps mnemonic for oral
Recitations, of noun, verb,
Adjective, preposition and other,
Is the original hymn in English.
Punctuation has been avoided
As interpretive and anyway
Nonexistent in the petroglyph

Of the gnomic prayer itself:

"Time be good to the
Person have new of and
Year do first in a
Way say last for that
Day get long on I

Thing make great with it
Man go little at not
World know own by he
Life take other from as
Hand see old up you"

How do we interpret
The strangeness of these
Common terms arrayed
In implausible, not to say
Impossible formations?

One line of thinking,
Extra hungry, hopes these words
Hide clues to buried treasures.
Somewhere in the nearby mountains
A tomb, a chest of precious metals waits.

Others have interpreted them
As messages from advanced
Aliens, extraterrestrial,
For puzzles, for good or for ill.

I know they are exactly
The words you know best.
Be content with that. Escape
Bewitching speculation
And narrative. Be at rest.