After Vevey

I’d read Voltaire in a different light.

Candide’s single-minded pleasure less and

less of a Baedeker’s guide to how a lad coped

through the fool’s folly of a night’s sweat

about the nether regions. The never-ending

quest to have a Jenny pin his tail back on,

so much absurdity. The blind stupidity,

over and over, again, and again, too often

too much of an admission to the simple-minded

purposeless of a chickless cockerel.

 

I’d returned a wiser man. Passion,

no matter how energetic, was tidal.

The horizon, so far and linear, eventually

brought you to the edge of the world.

Whether you sailed on or turned back,

always dependent on who you’d left behind. 

 

Ken e Bujold