Gregory Cox Poet Epic

The Greatest Disease Ii

I sat looking out my window, the same window 

I had been looking out for thirty years. It was 

12”X32” and very limited as to scenery; however, 

it had been my only view of the world for so long 

I cherished it as an old friend. One tree, from 

seedling to maturity was my focus and as I 

watched I knew today was the day. June 18th and 

no birds were flitting on the branches, no 

insects bumped my windowpane. One leaf, 

misshapen, diseased, seeming to defy gravity as 

it clung resolutely to its berth. Then, before 

my eyes, a gust of wind and spinning in its 

turmoil, the last leaf fluttered toward the 

ground. It was though that leaf was a black hole 

in the fabric of life, my thoughts and vision 

tunneled into the dark vortex of its flight. 

Downward and darker, downward and darker, it was 

a formula of finality on which I flew. 

Corporeally free, I was essence, a spirit set to 

dissipate upon contact with the earth. I was so close 

to being free, free from prison, pain, torment, 

guilt and all the dark cloaks of my existence. 

Oh, how I hungered for that surcease, oh, how I 

hungered for that release. The terminus of 

frustration at a world that did not care and my 

laughter burst from me as Mom’s epitaph shimmered 

through my consciousness: “HERE LIES MANKIND: Be 

there a lapidary on stone can say? Here lays 

mankind for their sins to pay. Their own Mother, 

they took her life, pierced her heart with their 

greedy knife. Poisoned her blood and flayed her 

hide, then carelessly cast her treasures aside. 

Oh, they wailed and how they cried on that dark 

day their Mother died. Now their reason, that’s a 

honey. They took her life for some money, now 

they are dead and I think that is funny”.

(continued below the greatest disease III

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