Shimer College - Acropolis Yearbook (Mount Carroll, IL)

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At evening I arrived Chained expectation the only amulet Against my fear. As if a dreamer could descry The target as an artist can And then arrow it, knowing The distance to be just so blue, I aimed my stay on one day's turning Forgetting that the mind may will But never dictate the awakening to freedom. Like torches grasped by night to see itself A processional of voices burned around me. Their masks crackled scarlet, The olive branches of their minds urged me to join, And I stepped into them, into the cold flames To be cleaned. Then we wove golden Through the black brocaded night, Through fluted colonnades, under peaked pediments Where the rebellious stars refused to cast a shadow. And as our silence sang of the conundrum's question I heard the creaking rhythm of the wheel. There were stairs before us Scaling the air to pillars and a room. We climbed them, entered and around An altar sat in darkness: each held His offering, but was afraid to lose the libation Until there was light. We were helpless, between the sorried intervals Of wonder and asking, helpless to fill our cups Again until we knew what they contained. This is the worst: when the hand is weighted By a rounded grip of liquid flaming Whitely invisible. This was the worst Until a voice sceptered the air with sparks And we could see. The embers on the table Echoed effulgently the waving of the wand And each of us came forth, came forth to pour Onto the others, finding which offerings Rose weltering to the oblations' surface gold. This we repeated until each of us found floating In his cup some of the flocculent and Phosphorescent gleaming. I stared in my cold cup: The flakes had burgeoned into serrulated Petals that bit into one another Around the tufted core: They were like the plates of tarnished Armor, reflective and protective of a cockled heart, They wore a dim mirror made of scales. I stared into my cold crustaceous cup, My look a question, my searching a reply And when the shadow started at my staring I knew the question rested in the answer there, In the masked face that stared back up at me. I shuddered to consider how others Had taken years to see what I had seen. But I had poured and mingled my libation With so much art, with so much Demonstration of my innate ability that I had found with one short shivered Glance all I had dreamed for. My sleep I knew was over then: I wanted to awake. Chanting exultation to the silence Of surrounding voices, I exhorted them To share in the completion of my sleep. But their tongues never whispered And I decided by the way, The circumspective way, they turned away And then around, I decided they were envious of me. Still I dream on, but I was certain That my sleep was waking: I seized the cup and looked again. Complacently the image quivered: My belief was made complete. I ambled toward the sceptered voice: My lips began to cachinnate. I stood before him in the gloss of My discovery: the laugh My best asseveration of accomplishment. He smiled equivocations And he dropped his hand, down over the Stigma of the shadow. I saw it split, I saw the hollow mask Maculate the gold. But the complacent shallow shadow Had had the shape of me within it, Even if there were no features to the Face. So I left the room then, knowing The first spoke to be woven, Knowing the first spoke would slow the Circumstantial wheel.