Is manhood a bullet in a martyr's heart?
Or is it the heart's slave admiring a woman's art?
Is it the verse that stands?
Praising a woman's worth
Or the tear that brands
Welcoming a firstborn's birth?
Is it the soldier leaping large lengths of miles?
Or the humbled king asking forgiveness a million times?
Is it the steps he takes, mistakes he made?
Or perhaps the substance, the fair unperfected shade?
Is it the love one feels for a brother?
Or the innate desire to love and discover
Is it the man bursting with new pride?
Or the one who swiftly sets it aside
When love's gentle grace meekly knocks his door
Seeking warmth and tenderness from an inner core
Is it the man that commands his enemy's respect?
Or the one who worships his wife's defect?
Manhood is neither in inward worth
Or outward skill
It is the painful birth
Of an ardent will
It is the tears of a humbled youth
The desperate prayer made of truth
It is a soldier on stage
Containing his rage..
Surviving shame, taking blame
This is man, his worth, and his truth
Not beauty, birth wealth or wit
Could keep a candle forever lit
Virtue and iniquity
Afford him injury...
Antiquity.... a luxury, his remedy
Swiftly etches his faded memory
