Fortunato in the Catacomb
What strange pale dream-mist is this,
That drifts between in-here and out-there?
Where have fled the feelings of my youth?
Desire, passion, lust, engagement, even shame?
Why is the village square so empty?
Where are the friends of my youth?
Where its blood-red certainty?
Where is any sense of future?
Of past?
Of present?
Where is the desire to live?
Or even desire to die?
Victor Frankl taught us that a man can live without hope,
So long as he can still create the dream of meaning.
To dream - aye, there's the rub.
It is not loss of hope that tops that slippery slide,
Rather it's the epiphanic horror of knowing
That meaning must be created anew in every moment.
Woe betide the man who but relaxes for an instant,
And in that precious twinkling slips his grasp
Of all desire to invent more spurious meanings.
"Enough, enough," his spirit murmurs.
The dream-mist drifts,
I cannot see you through its veil.
The candle gutters.
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