He got some notion into his head, and there he stood on one spot from dawn, thinking [...] He did stand until it was dawn, and the sun rose; then he offered a prayer to the sun and walked away.
- Symposium, 220c-d
I’m not as wise as people think.
You’ve heard it all before:
intimations of humility
pretensions of the sublime
emptiness like a Western Zen.
But I was just a soldier once,
and still am, but with a Daimon
riding on my shoulder.
That morning on waking
the stiff body rose, grumbling,
like a mule loathing the yoke,
taking the mind upon it's back.
And I still emerging, was transfixed
like Corinthian youths dying on the field,
watering its grasses with their blood.
The red sun
hovering over the wild sea,
raised like a questioning brow,
and the weight and voice of all heavens bore down.
How could I move before the presence?
Does one drop their salute before a king?
Does one lover leave the other
panting, just as soon as they are spent?
I waited for the next sun to arise.
The questions aren’t my own,
I just pass along the word
from the moving unity of each thing.
I ply sages with questions
that I do not have the answers to.
A stubborn, thick-skulled soldier
now the wisest man in Greece.
To claim to know is chains.
No one can share my heart,
or observe my every thought
so why should anyone think different of Life?
We quest each other,
seek the same each day,
and with our lovers find something anew.
They quote that I know only nothing
and it’s true, but this I also know:
The loving is in the questioning.
Sat Sep 22, 2018 8:39 pm