Thieves of Fire

I know I know nothing; those that know, do.
Lessons at once both misleading and true.

Poem by Meaghan Horsley, age 17

From the gods’ fire came at first life,
Bought with great sacrifice; greater still strife.
Stolen away from perfection it was;
Man’s greatest triumph and sin came because
They thought themselves more than they knew they could be
And yet all the while still failing to see
The doom that they wrought, that they brought, that they sought.

And so it came life for their death was reward;
But as they moved closer and closer toward
Their great blazing spoils, a pillar of fire,
And felt its vast heat, and sensed its desire,
The malice beneath it was too late revealed:
They watched as destruction was quickly unsealed,
And as they felt flame, they felt blame, they felt shame.

Across earth it spread, trailing nothing left spared;
Its wrath did consume, and they only stared.
As their whole world caught fire, and plunged into ruin,
They realized at last that they were but human
And could never control this magnificent blaze;
They’d stepped past their bounds, so the gods sent the phrase:
You reap what you sow, what you grow, what you know.

I know I know nothing; those that know, do.
Lessons at once both misleading and true.
Knowledge is power, but power corrupts,
And so from this world are we untimely plucked;
The ultimate price for the ultimate prize:
In the end, there is death; yet we try to be wise
In this all-too brief life; and we fail, and we rail, and we veil.

Fire is truth; fire is life; yet fire is doom.
Fire brings glory, or carves us a tomb.
By fire we’re purged and fire we’re borne;
From fire comes all of our hate and our scorn.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust;
We give up our thrones only if we must.
This charred world we bought is ours to behold; thus we must, to be just, so we trust.

September 2012