Humble Pie

I’d like to paint a picture on
The canvas of your mind
To see if we can’t both agree
Some precious truth to find

The setting is a bakery
And lined from wall to wall
The sweetest icing coated treats
To make your taste buds call

And as you gaze around you see
Such colours, vibrant, bright,
In sprinkles, candies, icing swirls
The shades of sheer delight!

We’re not just here to look around
We came inside to buy
The greatest of all known desserts
We came to get a pie

The pie surpasses other treats
In part due to its shape
A cookie there leaves room to spare
A whole pie fills the plate

Consider now which pie to choose
Banana with whipped cream?
Apple streusel, pumpkin pie?
Don’t wake me from this dream!

Just then you catch a passing whiff
Of something in the bake
Amazing yet it’s quite unlike
The smell most pies would make

It smells of something hard to place
But sure without regret
The greatest smell that we can tell
Our nostril's ever met

The expression “it’s to die for”
Quite quickly comes to mind
But what exactly it smells like
Is troublesome to find

Predictably you ask the clerk
What glory gives that smell?
That smell is our most famous treat
The hardest one to sell

Now just a minute you reply
How can that even be
That your most famous tasty treat
Is hard to sell to me?

“Because”, the clerk right ready says,
“Of what you’ll find inside”
This one is filled with character
Without a pinch of pride

No wonder we don’t know the smell
We’ll buy it anyway
Some character can’t be so bad
That I won’t want to pay

You miss the point the clerk explains
You see now as it stands
The pie you buy will disappear
When seen within your hands!

How will the pie I buy be gone
When purchase has been made?
I’ve done what was required of me
The price for it is paid

I understand your question sir
Hence is the clerk’s reply
But once you see it in your hands
“Poof” goes the humble pie!

Thus when we see ourselves as those
Who hold a humble pie
It may well be reality
Has quickly passed us by

The ones who hold a humble pie
Are simply unaware
Too busy lifting others up
To notice that it’s there

This poem was a finalist in the May 2018 poetry contest