The Apology
What would you say
If after this time
You reawakened this day
Long out of reach, your prime?
Would you still ride the horse of your forms
Bequeathed by Poseidon forever to be
Or from your eyes
Would your reality emerge
Amidst this positivist sea?
Would it be theology you adorn
Like most of the lepers strive to see
Would you heal their eyes
With a synthetic judgment
A Kantian reprieve?
Philosophy is deceased
Or so many decree
Encumbered in Zarathustra's sleep
Like Jehovah into its blackened lungs
The breath of life -- could you breathe?
Would you still be the peripatetic mentor
Of Dante's "the master of those that know"
Or would you still wish to be the protege
The protege of he with no letters to show?
Would you defend your apology
Of a traveling heretic
A heretic for corrupting the young
With the idea that politicians and beaurocrats
Must abide by an inviolable ethical form
A form of chivalry this day much unsung.
And so this apology I must afford to you
For allowing the Sophistry
Of your age
To come anew.
Leaders still begin wars
With the flower of youth
Not their own
Petals wilted and crushed
Under the jackboots of those lacking
The concept of God or father.
Fear creates a protean enemy
As sure as the incited mob's voice
You witnessed at the ripe age of twenty-eight
Snatched your second father
And afforded him no easy choice.
Justice is not easy
Your life was about defining
Something this day has been lost
It's essence forgotten, always at a cost.
After this apology
Can we still have a hope
That you could rescue this world
Fill the holes and set it afloat.
After all of the centuries
Some forgotten
Some abhorred
Would you still be able to prove?
That all of human thought and hope
To you is indeed but a footnote?
Copyright © D Shaftesbury | Year Posted 2005
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