Definitions

The Intoned Discourses

Once, upon a bed of clay,
A famed conjurer shed his lore
To all who hung on all his stay;
So burst the catch on time’s first door.

Twice, on a floor of straw,
A star shone through meek stable walls
And bathed the month, indebted, in awe
Dissolving dreams in kindling stalls.

Many the hour, on a mat of rush,
Words washed over prone on rude witness
And damaged the news that societies push,
To warrant vessels riven and shiftless.

But the message that those words conferred
Held a convoluted essence of truth -
That image breaks and thoughts disturb
And reach into our soul, our youth.