An endless rank of great grey clouds
marches to the horizon.
A hawk wheels, and keens once.
A grey eye flickers, and opens
Dry lips draw across yellowed teeth.
The aged traveler draws the cowl back,
from scarred brow and furrowed forehead,
thin grey-black hair drawn at the nape
into a wispy tail, and veined temples,
knotting and unknotting in silent thought.
Visions from the night before dissolve into shards
and what seemed whole and true evades recall.
The course today seems plain enough,
but after that, the path is unmarked,
the land featureless, the stars obscured.
Guides cannot be found, except liars or fools,
who seek employ in obsequious succession.
How can Right triumph, if good men falter?
But the good are few, and surrounded by those who
Speak of good, but think only for themselves.
What use is force for good, if no place is found
for the fulcrum, and the right direction unknown?
A sword is a tool, and a poor one at that.
It does one thing, whether required or not.
The wisdom to know when that is the right tool,
is hard won, and more often lost
when all is lost in the error of trials.
The knight has evaded losing all, and yet
his wisdom and sword are nearly all he has left.
He fears that what he has lost in strength
is not made up in wisdom.
And strength of conviction crumbles
in the cynicism born of experience.
What is the right, after all, what is the good?
The simple slogans that had guided and inspired
are now revealed hollow.
The men who once seemed above all worldly failings
and spoke these slogans, are found wanting,
Human and venal after all.
There is usually some small measure of truth
in every soup of lies ever served, but how to strain
that broth for the one true thing eludes him.
Perhaps this whole quest has been
a fool's errand, a trial without purpose.
Perhaps he has been set upon it by a malevolent being
who enjoys the show he has created.
But more probably, there is nothing, and never was,
except the quest, the search, the thirst for truth.
He throws his cowl all the way back, and his head follows,
his gaze rises straight up into the churning clouds,
he opens his heart to the emptiness of the sky,
and the calm indifference of the heavens.
He does not need the stars.
For the first time in his life, he feels free.