Fragility

He was caked in dried life and brittle flakes,

Roaming the red land unknown to us both.

Water was in my gourd to ease his ache

But to this he refused, as he had sworn oath

To wade the heated region on his own.

“A hooded man is calling me to the edge,

And I will kneel, miserable, at his throne.

Take steps distant from mine, or he will wedge

Black clouds within your crucial sense of truth.”

I heeded the man, departing his trail,

Eyeing his fevered face deprived of all youth.              

I had no choice but to let the man fail,

Bowing to the ails of the hooded being.

I was a member of the unseeing.

Author's Note

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