Marcus Aurelius ‘Inside Knowledge’

 

Once in Babylon there reigned
A King who built a Labyrinth   –
It was a marvel of the ancient world

He eliminated secretly its architect designers
That he alone possess the arcane knowledge
Concerning its guile and powers of alienation

One day a desert nomad visiting the city
Was tricked to be the ‘fly’ to test this ‘web’   –
And there for days demoralised he wandered

Until in despair he called on his soul’s creator   –
By this intimacy his intuition guided
As if invisible angels led him to the exit   –

The King a-mazed   –   the nomad then addressed him
With quiet dignity   ‘One day
I a humble desert man will help you…

…And you perhaps may try my labyrinth   –   the wild Sahara’   – 
For there within his wars the King was captured   –
But the nomad set him free to fare for home

He wandered in a circle wide and then a circle small
King of his own cosmos he had never felt the need
To contemplate the guiding stars nor make a compass of compassion

So he circled and spiralled
Down like a stricken fly
Before it drops and dies

 

 

 

Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer

 

 

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