In Chase of Clouds. See also: The Fruit Turns Ashen on the Tongues of Men.

There is Truth,
hidden deep within the sea of our minds,
In great, billowing clouds,
Rolling across the jagged rocks and imposing waves,
Matching the rhythm of the tides,
At the will of Luna herself:
In and out,
Close and far,
Here and gone.

We fishermen of ideas scramble,
At the sight of white on the horizon.
Quickly casting our hopeful hooks that mimic the shape of words,
Straining ourselves with expectation that rises and falls with every coming of the tide.
Raindrops shower us with pity and thunder laughs in our faces at our failed traps.
Resorting to other methods,
Thanks to our overplayed meal ticket: ingenuity,
We venture forth in active pursuit,
So as to overcome these blanched blankets of what is.
the fog surrounds us and we hurl our nets,
Not with strength of our arms, of course,
But with years of memories of solitude,
And the obligation to feed our family and strangers.
The wait is ecstasy:
All that has been impossible for so long is suddenly soon to be.
We have conquered this natural thing !
It is ours so perfectly that it will align itself with our hearts and minds without flaw.
Reeling in the nets restores our hope to its natural residence,
The very pit of our souls.
Picking out the few pieces that pitied our dreams enough to stick around,
We instantly entrap the vapor with a shell, with the idea that we will prevent the inevitable escape.
With neither fear nor fury, white Purity leaks from every edge,
Lazily floating away with our achievements and desires as its means.
With a final heave,
We launch the shell,
With our souls and minds and pasts and anything we can give,
Far across the abyssal pond that gave us first life.
Finding our only comfort in our last hope,
That comes to us as a dream-like scene:
A child,
Unaware of the origins of the sands of ancient castles in which he searches,
For anything, old or new,
For the sake of finding.
Out and in.
Far and close.
Gone and
Here.
Our vessel finds its way into the innocent grasp of our archaeologist,
Empty of any fog, thick or thin,
No clouds to be found.
But, as our consciousness starts to fade,
And the physical plane starts to take its toll,
We catch a glimpse of the child,
With a smile on his face,
Shell-to-ear,
Listening to the whisper of the wind as it traces the path of the past inhabitant.

We have fed one soul.
One soul.
It took us all this toil and time.
To feed one soul.
We fed no army,
No city,
No country.
But one soul.
“I pity you.
Doesn’t seem worth it.
Seems like you wasted your life and all that effort.
Shoulda just fed yourself.”
What we found,
That sweet descendant of the fruit that freed us,
Is not for an army.
Nor a city.
Nor country.
Nor is it even for myself,
Regardless of how I wish a meager taste of the sweet sustenance.
That one soul?
Will never starve,
Will never feel the pangs of hunger,
Will never know want.
Gentlemen,
We have cured world hunger.
Not of the physical sort,
But rather,
We have found how to feed men’s souls.
We have found Truth.
We
Have
Hope.

Leave a Reply