It was in the way we were all found wanting, the silence and sedition. It was in the hope held in storybook verses, the body and blood little more than another name for the dish and the spoon, heaven held favor in every account. The tyrant of happenstance reigns supreme in the real world, cracks in the pavement, fissures in the firmament. We climb that hill, we roll that stone. The chair remains empty, the quest unfulfilled.
Terror runs wild, sudden fire, stampeding horses. Hearts unable to beat back these restless fears, they strive to find a story they can sleep on, a prayer that tells them they were loved all along. Armor vacant, standing in some dusty corner. Justice found only in books and the relentless statuary. The dream invented becomes the dream endured, dust and blood and the butcher-work of ordinary steel. Towers fall as towers do. We scrape and scramble without the fortitude of ants. We crawl and gutter, blame the breathing of others for our flames going out. Towers fall, and mostly we lose our minds. The grail is as gone as ever.
The hour draws as hours do, all shimmer and labor and ghosts. Politics is the art of alibi, the heroics of the peacock, the way of scarecrow and beggar and goof. Duty goes derelict while our sainted intercessors policed wedding beds and urged on crimes of the fiery sword. Duty another fairytale word while we worshiped our own fear, as if there was sanctity in the cowering. One day the sky falls down, we spend the rest of our lives blaming the stars. Chance is still the champion, the siege perilous still empty. No Percival, no Lancelot, no Galahad come to claim his place. No grail, no redemption, only more words for posterity. Lost in a dark moment, we crowd the stand with myths.
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