Reading 10 - The Young Man, Overwhelmed, Abandons His Core Beliefs
The Young Man
Overwhelmed
Abandons his Core Beliefs
The young man walked
Out in the Hot Sandy desert,
The sound of a funeral march playing
In the deepness of his soul,
A pall of smoke rising
From the dead-wood wadi,
The nadir of his wilting life.
Sheltering beneath the bell
Of a resonant chestnut tree,
A small candelled voice cried out,
“Where you going Mister?”
A drear reply,
Echoed through the empty caverns
of his inner sides,
“ . . . nowhere, to nowhere . . . “
Following his forlorn footsteps
Through the endless dunes,
Salting his desperate ignoble flight
With tender valentine tears,
His younger selves, idealistic as angels
Stand sentinel on the horizon,
Like a disapproving choir,
Stark solitary figures,
Their tallness silhouetted
Against a raw and roseate sky.
Deep red blood
Bleed into the hot desert sand,
Water some vain desert flower
With the blood red hue of my defeat and shame,
As the last fiery purple of sunset
Is kissed from my lips forevermore.
This is my conclusion,
The crushed chimera of my love,
The blood-red rebel stain,
The end of my defiance.
