- Fealty
A man who finds nothing but prevarication
in the sing-speak of the faithful,
not strained certainty in the fervent love of the ascetic,
nor doubt in the guileful adoration of the falsely contrite,
not well-disposed visions, the illumination,
the Spirit of the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
nor the propensity for the enactment of the adiamorphic—
devoid of power, such a man came before my sight.
Blessed was this apostate, in earthly circumstance,
but for all the opulence that surrounded him,
he felt chilled to his very inner marrow,
and his eyes, once a lovely shade of wonder,
were dull and gaunt for witnessing malevolence,
abhorrent atrocities committed in the name of whim
by men comparable in fame and legacy to the Pharaohs;
them like the ancient kings had cast out this wanderer.
Chased by the semblance of a bird of ill-omen,
his dreary eyes, so full of confusion and regret,
took in my countenance and the humble cloth
in which I was attired, coverings which could scarcely hide
the awakened intensity within me—his senses stole when
provoked into utter observance (they sought to abet
the revival of his floundered belief), a path,
and spent he installed himself at my side.
Drawn, he reached in daring to touch
the dark mark of subjugation centered upon my forehead,
an abrasion wrought of meticulous prostration
to the fairly universal concept of an Absolute Being.
“I would steal your fealty,” the traveler said, with so much
zeal that I momentarily feared him still black lead,
a failed repossession of probity, a complete negation
of the principles first impressed, urged into diffuse keeping.
Evenly, I beseeched him rest, and together we sat
facing east, feet turned away from that sacred object
before us, the rolling sands unwound, as a hot wind
buffeted our shoulders, a comfort against the cold terrain
stretched for eons in every direction—a prayer mat
placed at the verge of the crossroads to protect
supplicants such as ourselves, those who have sinned,
from balking at the prospect of kneeling before the arcane.
“Forgive me,” the nomad said imploringly,
then placed his hand upon mine instead, and I joined them,
touching together the palms, despite the sanctions,
the deterrents long decreed against such fond intimacies.
“What called you here, Traveler?” I inquired kindly,
although I suspected, and professed in future to condemn
his tears, which coursed slow and sullen in fashion
down the length of his hope laden posturing like emissaries
Granted leave to inflict their own brand of misery.
“I followed,” he stammered, “I followed,” he professed
again, “I followed the sound.”
And nodding, I acknowledged, “The steadfast truth—”
it sometimes seemed that they wrested Him from mythology,
and in my failing to accept his divinity, thrice I have stepped
away, refusing the audacity that they compound
which—“wrought my conviction in my pagan youth.
“Infancy, more like, for their voices rang
with strength and knowing, through the empty channels
of my mercurial heart, filling it to bursting,
filling it to brim, with every resounding verse
and intoned hymn, their songs and chants began
to quench an unknown thirst, though I sought to dismantle
once, the very foundation of all existence, yearning
for the capacity that lies in oblivion without remorse.”
To read more, download Dues for the Repose: From Words Much Like Poetry Kindle Edition at Amazon.
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"GIVE US BARABBAS"
Illustrations from volume 9 of The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons
Edited by Charles F. Horne and Julius A. Bewer, published 1910.
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