The Jester and the Conjuror

Probably the most profound thing I've written to date, and I cannot express it accurately any other way. The jester and the conjuror are performers in a dialogue poem — tarot counterparts being the fool and the magician — representing mankind’s naïve questions and some authority dismissing those questions until the jester realises that he’s asking the wrong ones, at which point the conjuror acknowledges a kindred connection.

What are we but weak warm flesh, and blood in its hold;

ashes and dust in a tick, or the blink of a soul.

Foolish son of Adam —

Your fickle dust is shared. You are not your physicality:

mere silhouettes dancing on the face of reality.

Mountain, sea, and tempest share not your dreams of ebb and flow.

For them no time, and beauty none in song, love, or rainbow.

Are we lost in the vastness of infinity,

forgotten in the silence of eternity?

Foolish son of man —

No rule nor law can lay siege to such a far-distant wall.

Beyond number only are falsehoods by which you trip and fall.

Though celerity and brilliance be weighed and measured,

missed is the glister of your gift, and of life so treasured.

Why am I given free will to steer the fateless,

but so little time to illume the fathomless?

Foolish son of Jof —

Your will is held fast in its gyves by time’s pattern aslope,

bound between the weight of memory and the wings of hope.

Causation is the illusion that affords you your thought,

but seeking root and reason by chasing change will yield nought.

So all the myriad waning moons and mourning suns

witness not the passing lives, nor of what becomes?

Learned son reflected —

Now is the seat and palpable throne of the conscious mind,

extending dominion over qualia and their kind.

Unbowed by the measurable world, unconquered by rune,

for this is your fate; this is your legacy; this is You!

Copyright © Tony Proctor

Dedicated to my late father

#Poetry #Science #Reality