Casual Spartans

This morning, I came into the new.

Far from the smallness,

from the basements and the Brahman night soil.

Long away from the caryatid nightmare,

still, only half awake.

Far from the paper men, myopic and monocled,

standing beneath the lintel stone with wind-fluttered women, folded and blank.

Far, far from the firebrand of early afternoon fear.

Here, on the top deck with my casual Spartan, who points to the growing shore and says, "You see, friend, what you thought was a foot race is really just a field of dancing wood nymphs.”

Here, as the morning mist dissolves, and my narrow eyes pull the shore closer, I realize I know this place. I left here years ago; spirited away at a time when I resembled a nymph far more than a woodsman.