A Signal in Smoke

26 December 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/12/a-signal-in-smoke/

A new pain, new decisions, the war of the magi
brought home to familiar places, the agonies and ecstasies
of love and hate. Is there any new ground, any place
where a dream can thrive, without constant embitterment?
There is still the road, but the road is long, and not really a home.
What of building a new home, in time, after healing?

--

Of course one could never endeavor to be alone,
it just happens that way sometimes, because in its disguises
the sun hides its eyes, and one loses sight of the meaning,
the center of life and the essence of time, whence all things derive
and to which they return. All these walls we so carefully build
are a clear delusion, protecting our minds from the brutal reality
that all things fade into another, given enough time.

--

So we have waged war against time in pursuit of stasis,
eternal stasis, the worst of all possible worlds, because lacking
the one thing that makes life exciting, its movement,
and lacking also the dangers that call for virtue.
Thus men are superfluous and become an endangered species.
Many are born, but not many become fully grown,
and why should they? Perhaps for the joy of it,
as some men tend gardens despite having plenty to eat.

--

But the garden now feels under siege, and the few
who have good ones must fight tooth and nail to defend them
against the hordes of roving barbarians, homeless and looking
for empires to topple. But there is one hope, that the hordes
may be charmed, for a moment at least, by words and songs
sung skillfully or played upon a lyre.

--

But this hope is a foolish one, foolish because
most barbarians cling to barbarity as a totem
and will not let go. So we build higher walls,
more defenses, and send up a signal in smoke
hoping somewhere out there, another is doing the same.