The Fool's Discontent, Part 5

Seven parts. The seventh part is best.

Read Part 1, 2, 3, 4


V. Meanwhile…

A window open in the westward wing
Allows well-calculated prescriptions to be delivered
To those outside whose time is passed
Or not to come.
Your mother is one.
Her heart is heavy in her breast
Crying out
Do I not know myself best?

The reply is soft, well practiced
Like warm mist to the ears
Black smoke to the mind:
   Good mother, if life were truly your own
   And this generous well were dry to the bone
   And the things that we know were nevermore shown
   Do you really believe you could go it alone?

Now awakened
Now she plumbs the depths of her deepest thought
There is something – something!
Unordered, wild, empty
It could have been…it will not be.

In loneliness of clouded dreams
She has everything she needs
Everything she cannot reach
Everything she cannot say.

She stalls, she prays
His stare is learned
It does not stray
Backed by the power of knowledge in gray
The sacrosanct peer-reviewed cards on display
And under its weight she concedes