Wisdom Gone Missing

In a land of misery, anarchy, and cruelty,

there lived a king who was never guilty.

One day his little princess was in the garden

when all of a sudden,

something slipped from her hand.

The princess sobbed and cried and said she had lost something grand.

The king panicked and set up a meeting with all the ministers in his kingdom.

It was not gold, emerald, sapphire, or diamond,

but it seemed there was something called wisdom!

'What is wisdom?',shouted the king; then his daughter replied,

'Wisdom is something that makes you wise

and will help you rise.'

'Don’t worry',replied the king, 'we have power,

and we will use it to the best of our endeavors.

We will deploy an army on a massive scale,

follow every trace and trail,

and find wisdom from heaven, earth, or hell.

We will use robotics and AI,

and satellites to spy'.

'The problem is that we do not know its shape, color, dimension, or size;

how can we find wisdom to make us all-wise?'

'But as this makes our princess sad,

we will hang posters everywhere and make expensive ads.

We will seek help from NASA, the Pope, and Presidents worldwide.

We will make wisdom fall at our feet with pride.

We will send SOS to emergency services, for we do not have much time,

and not finding wisdom would be a crime.

A huge grant will also be sanctioned,

as finding wisdom may lead to a great scientific invention'.

Meanwhile, wisdom fell into a hole

and was picked up by an old, fat mole.

It was smart enough to understand

that it had picked up something grand.

So it pulled up wisdom, placed it like a tiara on its head,

and ran through dark and dingy street lanes, searching for bread.

Soon it was spotted by an eagle,

which swooped upon it, grabbed it by the neck, and spun it in a circle.

Maybe it was wisdom or the bright reflecting light;

the mole managed to free itself from the grip so tight.

Wisdom again slipped and fell into a burger van,

right into the middle of a heated oil pan.

It was grilled, toasted, and fried,

then tucked inside a bun and served piping hot to the first in the queue,an electrician.

He took the food and was about to take a bite and swallow,

just when he noticed something below.

He pulled out wisdom from the bread

and looked at it in dismay instead.

Not knowing if eating it would be right,

he threw wisdom into a dustbin nearby.

Soon, wisdom was picked up by a little boy,

who played with it like any of his toys.

Then came his father, who took away wisdom;

thinking it was the child’s new toy, a phantom,

he used it to kill his boredom.

This man was a new-age scholar; he tried to copy-paste wisdom,

but soon realized it was a complete waste.

He threw wisdom out of the windowpane

and began shouting at his child as if he had gone insane.

Wisdom then fell into the vanity bag of a woman

who looked attractive and elegant in her new dress from Louis Vuitton.

She peeped into her bag for blush and highlighter to enhance her glow,

for she felt a bit low that morning.

But finding something she had never seen before,

she panicked, placed wisdom on the table, and hurried out the door.

A hacker sitting nearby, quietly prying,

picked up wisdom, thinking it might be worth spying.

He tried to decrypt, decode, and transmit it through electromagnetic waves,

but found nothing useful even after experimenting for days.

Frustrated, he decided to sell the useless thing to a nearby store

and instead search for wisdom that could win him prizes galore.

After a long negotiation and bargain,

wisdom was sold with no loss or gain.

The store owner placed it on a shelf marked 'New Specimens for R&D',

and at that very moment, the princess passed by in her matte black Ferrari.

Seeing it, she stopped and cried aloud to the shop owner,

'Why are you selling wisdom?'

Astonished and annoyed, the shop owner replied,

'Madam, please do not blame us for something so absurd'.

Without another word,

the princess reached for the shelf and took wisdom into her palm.

She was perhaps the only one who knew

that wisdom cannot be bought or sold,

and yet should be treasured more than gold.

Nor can it be built or destroyed with modern-day techniques;

wisdom is something that comes from within.