The Coat Kept for Best

  • Post author:
  • Post category:Scrolls
A modern fable in verse. Wise Monkey Wrought scroll N.007, "The Coat Kept for Best." One coat was saved for best. The other went to work. Best was a date only the closet kept. The coat was kept for wearing best, excused from weather, spared the test. It hung in wait for one grand hour, too fine, it seemed, to spend its power. Another coat was worn to wear, through every kind of wind and air. Its cuffs grew thin, its colour turned, yet kept the shape that labour earned. The seasons passed. The coat stood still, too proud to bend, too fine to spoil. It wore its wait as its own skill, while dust arrived to share the toil. At last the day it saved for came, the single hour, the only aim. Its shoulders kept a hanger's line. The body underneath was fine. By spring the seams began to give, worn thin from choosing not to live. The busy coat remained in use. The precious one had no excuse. The coat was saved for best. Best never came to collect it.