factories, assembly lines, everything,
               the means need not justify the ends,
               surrounded by these familiar sounds,
               mothers and fathers to work,
                             children to schools,
               the sheer and young delight
               falls into the fading light
               like Hamlet's father (ghost)
                             and his awkward past,
               all that's not settled
               left for the next generation,
                             absurd.

               in the distance on every hill
               the young men pick flowers for mother,
               has she returned?
               have they forgotten the end?
               the oasis of the mind,
               remember when they promised us
               the spirits were alive,
               creating our every minute these voices would whisper,
               "simmer sweet knight
                             listen to the animals
               they shiver their own full moons,
               each to his own
               in a primitive void."

               but death's iris is dry desert,
               and each such a painful sight,
               a coal light recessing
                             in a forest night,
               the conscious effort
               is too objective to face,
               for every moment of purity lost
               to reach these enlightened ends,
               we are transformed into Prometheus
               as he lies chained to a rock,
               a liver every day
               for the vultures to steal away,
               years of rehearsal time,
               yet we still can't get it right.

               who is it says death is not sad?
               let them step forward onto this stage
               and tell me what he or she
               has done with their life.
               as if close candle-light did not
               make one's shadow tall,
               as if an audience would not
                             fill their ego at all,
               underneath all our words
               voices an instinctive call,
               a reminder of days gone past,
               never to be lived again.

               it is the age old mystery
                             no codes will break,
                                           no theories will devour,
               no document need explain,
               there is no prince
                             on his way,
               to ease this indifferent pain,
               to wake these minds
               from their impossible sleep,
               we wait only for the queen
               though not written in the scene
               to distract us of our fears,
               let us leave this drama behind
               let us step
                             down
                                           from
                                                         these
                                                                       deserts
               of idleness and remember,
               to listen to the children
               they are the life we leave behind,
               when the stage-lights go dark
               the dramas can have their end,
               we will truly feel compassion
               but only from within.

                             - Mark A.Willard, MSII