No, never was a knight so knight
As Gumble Strilts McKree.
He brought knighthood to its height
With an open-armed decree
That whosoever feathered up and flew
To helping others then became
A knighted blessing and could choose
Their order and their name.
A knight showed him a mighty kindness
When he was in a bind,
So he made his mission to invite us
To join the knightly kind.

The beauty of the Cardinal Knight
Lies in who’s on guard.
If you feel the Cardinal bite,
Join the Order of the Cards.

No, never was a knight so strong
As Rumple Drilts Klaree.
She once pulled the night along
To meet the shining sea,
Held up the stone bird’s mountain wing
So its chicks could leave the nest,
While hilly chicks are no small thing
In youth was her toughest test –
She saw the things that troubled
Her troublemaking self,
And turned them all to wholesome rubble
Instead of turning on ourselves.

The beauty of the Cardinal Knight
Lies in who’s on guard.
If you feel strong Cardinal bite,
Join the Order of the Cards.

No, never was a knight so brave
As Trumble Wilts Daree.
They dove into a depthless cave
Without a light to see,
Opposed a savage hungry horde
Of toothy, gobbling maws
With nothing but their soul as sword
And the chewable their cause.
They spoke against the best loved king,
Were jailed and cruelly chained,
But their oldish, owlish judge winked
And freed them as too sane.

The beauty of the Cardinal Knight
Lies in who’s on guard.
If you feel brave Cardinal bite,
Join the Order of the Cards.

No, never was a knight so wise
As Shumble Guilts Marie.
She saw through even her own lies
When she was only three,
Passed the magpies’ moony test
In realms of nameless doubt,
The first to even know the quest
Was there to be found out,
Returning, yes, with gold and luck
But also something more –
A deal that had been quite well struck,
For us, an open door.

The beauty of the Cardinal Knight
Lies in who’s on guard.
If you feel wise Cardinal bite,
Join the Order of the Cards.

No, never was a knight so kind
As Gumble Strilts McKree.
He sat with weeds as they pined
For fields all flowery,
Encouraged birds on their first flight,
Cheered them on their last,
Worried less about who was right
Since that was in the past,
And set his sights instead on what
He might help by heart or hand,
Neither of which he ever shut
To anyone in any land.

The beauty of the Cardinal Knight
Lies in who’s on guard.
If you feel kind Cardinal bite,
Join the Order of the Cards.

Illustration by DALL-E in the style of Raphael.

There’s the benefit of the doubt
And the drawback of the sure,
Both of which we need more out
In a world praising the pure,
When what is sold as such
Is rarely ever half so much
And we’ll be wrong just as long
As we’re sure that we aren’t wrong.
So I’ll take my Yes with a bit of No
And mix some No into my Yes,
And be better off with what I know
As an unsure mixture of the best.

Chata made himself a skin of glass
To house his soul inside
So nothing now could wander past
Using him to hide,
Though more important for our gem –
He could not be hidden,
Not forcing you to know him
But not letting him fit in
In a way that worked for others
But left him somehow out,
With his true self down and shuttered
He lost what he was about.
With this more modern glassy skin
Chata was now free
To be who he was out and in
As all can clearly see.

A glacial face is life in ice
For those of us who breathe and be.
I find this thought worth having twice –
What’s sweeter than a second sea?
A sea that stands apart
From river, plants and stone,
That follows its own chart
In waters all its own,
A sea that’s sweet
To sight and taste
But bad to leash
And worse to waste.
Such a sea sets its sails,
No other sails upon,
It balances the scales
Of earthly island pawns
By climbing shining mountainsides
Or standing on first sea quite pleased
To be a worldwide point of pride –
What’s sweeter than a second sea?

A marble face
Is love in stone
For one who placed
Their faith alone
In hammer – chisel – hands –
To meet the very spine
Of mountain’s steady stance
And struggle soul and mind
For more than they could plan – far more!
For more than they knew they’d achieve!
Their work began deep in their core,
For first of all they need believe
That even though their stone
Was blank as it could be,
In it as in their own
Sound body lay a seed.
What honored place
Deserves the art
That shows stone face
And claims a heart?

If something don’t come out right,
Well, it still came out.
That’s good enough to better
It without a doubt.
Though with doubt is fine as well
If out it’ll come.
Where something goes may mean more
Than where it comes from.