The Destruction of All Mirrors

The road less traveled is the road worth adventuring, And a distance unseen is a distance worth measuring: Such is the path taken by a soldier of great valor, Once embattled by storms, once a face of sickly pallor, Now is black with soot and coughing violently. Something fell, something crashed malignantly And made brittle mirrors collapse like glass. Redundancy and reflection—reminiscence—have passed And are dead, lacking a grave and a ceremony of grief. Along with the destruction of all mirrors is belief, Shredded and unraveled fabric upon the ground. Where are the proud when the humble cannot be found? We are splattered with blood, or soot, or nothingness And we have grimly discovered we are all purposeless— In actuality, it is a mere assumption, yet unchallenged: Knowledge carries no value, so wisdom is not avenged. The soldier is unsure if he is happy or despaired. Not a soul shall tell him which, for all are scared. Or that is supposedly what they think. None can know when the bodies sink With the shiny glass-like mirror we so dearly used For dreams and consciences. It was a privilege we abused, So the Earth's flimsy stilts finally gave way To something called a rising sun and a new day. The beams glint upon broken glass— Our new blades of grass, One would think. Certainty is on the cliff's brink.