Semper

Numbers account for the things one can see

People and structures and college degrees

Hours of practice and money amassed

Different metrics of one's own success

Estates don't state what is of great import

Property ventures and assets to sort

Climbing the ladder society scales

Fame is not character; pomp is for sale

World, would you stop? Don't define me by stats

Flow charts and pie graphs and ven diagrams

Polls are just popular, not always right

Figures disfigure the joy in one's life

Status pursued, in a moment, will pass

Treasures, like life, are just fleeting at best

Glittering gold is not nearly as dear

As years spent in peace, in absence of fear

Not in the quantity, many, a lot

But in the meaningful, few and less-sought

Not hard to find but one does have to look

All is laid out, it's inside the Good Book

Faithful consistency measures the heart

It's in the finish and not how one starts

As you keep going despite every pause

Enlightenment comes to brighten the cause 

Things that we claim that we really worked for

Won't be the plumbline, the metric, the score

Love, in its essence, lived out and dispensed

This is the measure, this is the expense

Always the gauge of a worthwhile life

Never erased by hardship and strife

Not seen in numbers but felt by the heart

Love is the greatest; don't ever depart