The Man with the Mirror

Heavy on his shoulders,

it rests incessantly,

pressing his feet deeper

into the soil.

Every hillcrest

he toils to reach,

every valley

which nearly swallows

him whole,

he feels the toll

of its burden

as much in his body

as in his soul.

Still,

he stalks the lands

of our world,

meandering,

pandering

to every whim

of the mirror's

waxing weight,

for the greater part

of his own will

is bent, maxed out,

on the fulfillment

of his task —

simply to carry

onward.

Words

escape him always,

blurred

is his vision,

unheard

by him are the cries,

whether forlorn

or elated,

of those he passes by.

Worn and oxidated

is its frame,

where can be seen

its evident centuries

of service,

but on its face,

not a trace,

not a modicum

of scum,

no grime

or scratches.

If and when

your sight catches

this immaculate,

alien,

preternatural thing,

you'll behold

a perfect reflection —

factual,

irrefutable

as the immutable

laws

which garner

and command

even the gnarliest

depths of space,

the ultimate

Wild West.

Best you look deep

into that glass

if you happen to pass,

in your travels,

this bastard son

of revelation

and his polished,

reflective encumbrance.

Allow me to offer

an abundance

of evidence

to provide substance

to this claim

if you remain

yet unconvinced

of its importance.

Portents do appear

of great potential

in accordance

with the unspent

existential

capability of the looker.

Shook — or

"shaken," if you

like —

and mistook

of the meaning,

many have been,

for a depiction

of the sin of idleness,

of the bridles

we have set

upon ourselves

through simple inaction,

may take

many a form.

A now dormant

volcanic calamity

once beheld itself

in his mirror

and bore

witness

to a future

choked with smoke

and ash forever —

or, at least,

for as long

as any living

thing drew breath

enough to remember.

Seeking not

to be the ender

of all the

hopeful little

beings

after seeing

how their desperate

fleeing

from its wrath

would lead

to nothingness,

a path

divergent

the emergent,

humble mountain

did devise.

It closed

its molten eyes

and resolved

to hold them so

for as long

as it might.

For the sake

of a bright,

if fleeting,

day for all the others,

the caldera

would endure an era

of its own

private night.

Slightly sooner,

at the right turn

of the previous

millennium,

a devious

little mammalian

grifter

pilfered,

willfully but

unwittingly,

the seedlings

of a mighty,

solitary tree.

Faced with this

involuntary ferry

far away

from their very

exemplary progenitor

by the hairy thief —

a scary

fate indeed —

the acorns were wary

and unsure

of what to do

within the

arbitrary prairie

upon which

they were eventually

deposited.

Closeted

as they were,

their doom

seemed to them

all but

guaranteed.

Boom!

The man freed

himself from exertion

to rest for

just a moment,

directly adjacent

to the new

and unwanted home

of the seeds,

whose nascent

greatness

was immediately unveiled.

They were shown,

within the glass,

the deepest forest

ever known,

grown solely,

over centuries,

from their own refusal

to be denied.

And so,

though the task was massive,

they pried

their roots out from within

themselves,

dug deep,

and got to work.

Smirking

in its constant,

roaring current,

a fervent

and raucous river

raged,

its rapids

vowed never

to be assuaged

and actively

engaged any attempt

at bridge or dam

with nigh-instant

flooding damnation.

In so doing,

it all but forced

segregation

upon several

meagre but

burgeoning nation

states,

if such terms

had yet been uttered.

Shuttered

from one another,

these young cultures

began to wither.

Then,

the man with the mirror

stumbled thither.

The river grumbled

something

of a bubbling, exotic,

aquatic curse,

for, right away,

it knew

it would reverse

its prior promise.

As if rehearsed,

a heartfelt,

stunning scene

unfolded

inside the mirror's

eerie screen.

Yearly gatherings,

serene and wholesome,

driven wholly

by sharing, caring

and never violence.

All this

in blatant defiance

of the river's

previous perception

of mankind,

with their restrictive giants

of wood and metal

and their pathetically false

"self-reliance."

Compliance,

steeped in mercy,

found its way

into the river's heart,

and it parted peacefully

from the notion

that the motion

of its waters

must never be

even slightly tamed.

The very same day,

the river steeled

its nerves and yielded.

It revealed to the people

its gentlest

bends, where their efforts

ought to be spent amidst

the mist and spray,

where a dam

might stay intact

and bridges may

cross the way

with but a smidgeon

of strain.

As insane as it seemed,

the stream remained

content

and no longer resented

the people,

whose faces had gone

from hungry to happy —

joy erases,

or at least helps

to cover up

the scars of struggle.

And,

at the center

of the festivities

and trade,

despite its past proclivities,

the river made

a happy, new nativity,

all from just

a drop of passivity

into its primal waters.

Daughters and sons

of curiosity!

For posterity's sake,

and in case

these excerpts of precocity

have not reduced

the velocity

of your skepticism,

I have one more

example,

though it is incomplete.

Ample are my faults,

and I know not

precisely what I'll do,

but I gazed, amazed,

into that mirror,

was told this tale,

and knew I must share it

with you.