*You Compose Poetry...*

Again, you find yourself wishing that you had a writing system to pass the time by keeping a journal, for the hours are truly torturous without it. This earliest part of a game of Civilization passes quickly, but being 'inside' the game you have already taken more time than typically elapses playing an entire game...

Then a thought occurs to you, poetry: you have a syllabary, a rather artistic and complex one, which have a semblance of associated sounds and concepts. With this, you can compose some of the earliest poems of your civilization, which will occupy a fair bit of time, and just maybe inspire some codification of language...

You call for brushes, birch bark, and ink, and begin writing...

It turns out you are bad at poetry: English style poetry, the kind that rhymes... However another form of poetry, devoid of meter and scansion, (which are truly the province of song lyrics rather than proper poems anyway,) begins to flow after a half dozen failed attempts to emulate some famous and long-dead poet of your old life which now lies beyond conscious recall, though you find yourself wondering how one 'kiples' anyway...

"Sunrise, the light returns: fire in the east, sight is renewed. A blood-soaked dawn: as rain will soak the ground this day. The rain: the blood of heaven. As the blood of man and beast animates the body: so too then, the blood of heaven, gives life to maize and fruits. Then we eat of the fruit: we eat the quintessence of heaven. Render up again that blood: return the life-**** we are given to survive! Yet still, beware: show great caution, my people! The blood of women and men is not for eating: sacrifice not your fellow humans! Beasts of the field, beasts of the forest: fish of the water, birds of the sky: these things are for the altars: only those that reason are not fit for the gods to consume. The energy of mind, the way of reason and intellect: these too flow from heaven, from the spirits they come to us. Must it not also be rendered up: must not we sacrifice thought-energy? YES, IT IS SO: but the power of thought is not to be contaminated with spilled blood, do not pollute the sacrifice of mind with **** and pain! Rather, render up the fruit of your mind: the works of intellect are our mental sacrifice. Write prayers upon papyrus, vellum, paper, or birch bark: compose songs and poetry in praise of the spirits. Then, to the fire: sing or recite, and burn the work! As the smoke ascends to heaven, as the flames consume the scroll: so does the power of mind you have given it, the thought and emotion expended: return to the spirits of heaven, it is given back unto the gods, magnified!"

That is your first successful poem, in a hundred years time you are sure it will be unreadable by anyone but you, but when/if that happens, you will burn it as you have just instructed, and write it anew...

All the false starts and intensive work of composing the poem, (which went through a dozen revisions before reaching that final version, you are unaccountably awkward with this new language,) have taken up all the time until dusk, and you find yourself weary. Tomorrow will be a new day, new challenges await, and you are resolved to bed your last two advisers, 'complete the circle' so to speak...