The steps of the deceived fall quickly now,
Walking unmarked trails to unmarked ends.
We scurry like rats in a maze.
But rats perceive their goal;
We are but deaf and blind.
“I know the way,” says one,
Tripping on the fallen logs strewn about
As corpses on battle’s field:
The presence of their bodies should indicate life, but there remains only an absence.
These trees appear solid to the eyes,
But their exterior masks a rotten core.
Place no faith on the step there laid.
No sooner is the weight put down than the foothold buckles in.
How may we trust what is unseen when the visibly tangible is but smoke?
Of what may we be truly cognisant?
In what claim true knowledge?
All is uncertain.
We may collect clues,
Evidence of reality,
Glimmers of hidden wisdom,
Yet they must be interpreted;
Some guide must lead the way.
Oh, as if Dante we slept and visited were!
But send us not some Virgil.
Rather, Holmes, patron saint of human reason, to pattern our steps.
Send us Father Brown to feel the way out.
Thus aided, may we learn the basest things in ascendancy towards them divine.
Yet humanity seeks no such guide.
The self speaks too loud.
No other’s voice is heard,
Nor do we truly desire another’s voice to hear.
The wisest leaders are rejected
And we are left alone in the forest of ignorance
Stumbling
Reaching
Rushing
Nowhere
If one should chance to fall en route
We may momentarily pause at his grave.
Eulogies of self-presumed wisdom fall from our mouths as though water.
But the spring is polluted.
At length, we may simply grieve our lack of knowledge,
And stop, and cry, “I knew him once!”
Knew him once?
We never knew at all.
