The Pointing

In some aerie a fabled library soars;

On its myriad scrolls each truth is told,

The secrets behind all hidden doors,

Knowledge dearer than mountains of gold;

Intricate curves and dots and lines

Conspire to trap the facts as signs.

So dreams the world-weary sage,

Wasting his best years with books;

The farce playing out on stage

Pales next to ink on yellowed page.

He points to the exit and a dog looks

But sees no ghostly cue in the hand;

Staring dumbly the beast sits still,

The gesture lost like a pebble in sand.

None follows too the inky trail of his quill:

Preferring trendy charades, the thinker’s ignored;

He haunts the town below like a wraith;

Only the deaf and blind are adored

Who know nothing but keep the faith.

To deathless atoms learning’s a sideshow,

A gilded map to nowhere,

Pointless as a severed big toe.

When he awakens to the nightmare

He sets the sorted scrolls ablaze,

The rising smoke offending no one;

His protest fades like a guru in a maze

Who finds no welcome or escape:

Until exhausted he may run

Before collapsing in a daze,

Dying as one with the landscape.