Paper Money

I throw the covers back
to the still and chilly air
and feel my way along the wall
to the patio doors.

Slowly I check the catch
to find the door unlocked.
I alarm each door
to keep the burglars out.
Funny I think that even now
I check doors and windows
to make work for the burglar
intending to rob me of my treasures.

These can always be replaced but
the real ones I trust only to my god,
having worked in places
long and hard within my heart.
Their value, trust me,
would not be worth much
on the open market.
They are earned by pick and shovel
lodged by birth in every bosom.

The ones old farmers used
in days long gone,
found only in one intent
on finding his way back home.
It is on a map long forgotten,
deep in memory scavenged by years
and covered by locusts meaning
for it to stay buried.

The true journeyman works
the long way home,
straight to the coast of gold.
Burglars know the paper money
is in the safe behind the clock.
There is no gold in the vault to back it.

The real treasure cannot be touched.  It is earned.