The Philosopher

*Based on Plato's Allegory of the Cave Numb fists with bloody wrists chained to crumbling walls. Glazed eyes that never spy a single truth or fault. Dim light impairing sight in spaces dark and shallow. Stone walls where lies are scrawled by murky phantom shadows. One breaks free on frail knees stiffened by disuse, to leave behind the dumb and blind who welcome this abuse. He climbs in pain against the grain toward a distant light. With bloodied hands, he finally stands, exhausting all his might. Dazed at first, he's cursed by thirst beneath the blazing sky. The sun is bright and plunders sight from eyes too dry to cry. Lesions crust as eyes adjust to find a foreign land with greenest grass and sea like glass caressing strips of sand. He stands amazed before this maze of truths he's never seen and vows to save those in the cave whose ignorance demeans. When he returns, his words are spurned by those chained to the wall. They have no will to brave that hill or risk the chance to fall. He cannot go back to this show of living shadowed lies. Now that he knows the truth below, he needs the open skies. And so he climbs to search, to find the knowledge that he craves. No more a slave to the dark cave. He's left that mindless grave.