Have I Ever Said Thank You?
Not with the mind but with the heart, not with the lips but with my silence?

I am as the prince, born into the kingdom and showered with gift upon gift, with love and affection from the very beginning and from all sides. Who has known nothing, has experienced no poverty, has known no neglect. And so he says “thank you” to all and to none. He addresses the knight, the priest, the stable boy, the king and the queen – but his words are empty and his thoughts are political.

He never addresses the sun for rising in the morning, nor the starts for revealing their radiance at night. He neglects the wildflowers in the fields and the ancient oaks in the forest. He takes for granted the gentle touch of the moonlight and the cool kiss of the waters of life.

His lips may betray, and speak the form of thank you, but in his mind is a hammering and in his eyes the foggy mists of “more!”. His heart is an unknown land existing on no map and in no memory. It is lost and so lost as to be forgotten that it is exists and is so very close.

The prince becomes king on the very day, the very moment, that he bows down. The day every scale falls from his eyes and his whole being wordlessly cries “Thank you!” His lips do not move but his eyes become rivers leaking out upon the thirsty earth.
And he bows down nevermore to rise again.

Yet finds himself on the throne of old.
With wings of silver
And a crown of gold