The way you gazed into the waters, hoping to find life…
How you ran along the shore searching for movement, and
Got trapped in mud until I freed you from enticing little frogs
Before colors out of place stopped you in a full-on sprint.
If in ten years’ time, I would return to this lake with you, I should
Find a young man gazing deeper than today, hoping he could
Understand what binds the water, bends the light, finding
In this shallow pool something deeper than fish you thought you saw.
If I could muddy the waters to make them look deep, I would.
If I could spare you the betrayal of European missteps, I would
Myself murder Socrates well before he drank the hemlock;
Before his tyrannical worm mined the Mystery that you seek.
But I can’t.
You will want a reason for your tragedy.
You will seek a weakness in your gait:
A flaw, a sin, a scape goat, a purple garment of shame; and
You will become willing to damn today’s mysteries
For Tomorrow’s Myth – this world for That World.
Your trap was set long before your blue eyes ever blinked,
Before your self-inflicted wounds ever pulsed with prescribed pain,
Before your chosen foreign Saviors had even received their names.
If I could halt and rewind history to slay the metaphoric monsters
That will keep you up at night and away from Mystery, then I would
Lift you out of the mud that waits for you today; set you free to
See those cults of death that sow fear to feast on lovers of life.