myth making

Haven’t you read any good books?
Seen any classic films? Entertained any
form of fiction with any seriousness?

Didn’t your mother read to you as a child?
And didn’t your father tell you stories?

Did he ever tell you the good ones?
The great ones? The best ones?
The ones where the heroes
had to lose everything -everything–
in order to rise and be reborn?

Had you no muses or bards? No vagabonds
worth their salt, with scars from wandering?
And among your most esteemed teachers –
were there no men of wisdom who told you
that the secret to the Phoenix’s flight and fire
is death and ashes? And that without these,
that which is legendary will never be born?

And meanwhile, in the modern era, your
narcissists label “narcissistic” all across
the sheet music of the world, that great
dance of archetypes spinning across
Universe’s mighty orchestral stage –
Haven’t you read them, child?
Can’t you see them now?
Can you hear their song?

Do you feel them?
Thundering beneath,
alongside your fears?
A bright glowing furnace
melts the marrow within
lapping lazily against bone wall. The slow
sacred hum of lighting alive in your veins.

This is myth, in the making.


———

© Charlie Young, 2021