On the raft for days,I called out to Poseidon
-behold! an island
He looked up to God,Raised his staff, the sea parted
-people delivered
Wisdom of the Teacher
by Edward S. Gault.
It was forbidden to goTo the Place Of The Towers
The Spirits of the Ancients dwelt there
-and they were evil.
It was they who harnessed the Dark Powers
That would bring death to their world.
It was our Teacher who told us
much of what we needed to know.
And there was a lot, we knew, he dared not tell us
-trying to protect us.
Even us, the few who the tribe Honored with learning
-have to be protected from certain truths.
But only one would be chosen to be the Tribe's New Teacher
Most of us would be scribes.
That was fine.
Few,if any of us wanted to be the Teacher
-God, the cost!
It was Chosen Student who would go and dwell in the The Towers for a week-
Our teacher though, came back
-and many in the Tribe believed he was possessed.
Many never made it back.
That's why our tribe only has one teacher
-and he is very old.
All we could do sit and look dumbly into the fire
As he recounted all he knew of those ancient times
-horror after horror.
On the night he chose his successor (God help him!),
He told us he was going to die.
But he wanted us to know that much of what we had heard
-about the flying machines or the Great Plagues and Famines
were simply myth or exaggeration.
For example, the world as we knew it
could never have supported 7 billion people.
It was a disc, not a planet,
and the sun would continue to orbit
-as long as we made the necessary sacrifices.
Copyright 2008
