Le Mythe de l� é ternal retour-for Titus and Yuna

Poem dedicated to those star-crossed lovers from Final Fantasy X, Titus and Yuna

 

Le Mythe de l’ é ternal retour

For Tidus and Yuna

 

Traveling a thousand years ahead

Sun-bleached walls and gutted steel

are all that remain

Of the greatest technology from my time.

In the dust of my fathers

I try to make fire

But can’t recall the incantation

To coax heat from petrified wood

 

A foreigner here

I hesitate at an offered hand,

but finally agree

Reasoning it better to stumble forward

Than be left cold

And alone

With unnamed things,

Slimy things, and things with teeth

That eat young men and time

 

In Besaid, I met you

Among countless stones

The Sacred One

Beautiful and drenched with

Being

In Luca, I fell in love

with your graceful dance of death.

which relieves the living

Of those who don’t know they’re dead.

 

I did not understand

Your sacrifice

Allowing humanity a brief repose

From Sin and nature’s course

Because Sin, and nature return

Like they always do

As the exiled nobleman returns

leading an army

Equal to the size his grudge

 

It takes a foreigner, fool

or ignorant man

With the child-like eye

To see clearly… the subtle

Ridiculous idea of it. To be both

Master and servant to man.

 

Around…and around

Our deceitful ancestors etched

Circles within Ancient circles

Until Destiny and Fortuna

Became gracious

Allowing travel between

The dividing mountain or valley

Of their swirling Chaos.

 

In new territory

Questions and contradictions.

None have tidy endings,

But I ask them nonetheless

Do we dive headlong

And selfishly fall in love?

Or arm ourselves with swords of reason

And slay intelligent superstitions

Which lead us like ponies along the bridled path

 

We could

eliminate suffering and martyrdom

as the abrasive atoner of our souls

And each become accountable

For ourselves and those we touch

A spot where all this dwells agrees

And composes this supreme act of Fayth

To trigger imitations

As the Grand Weapon of change

Yes, small circles that ripple

Yet hides the battle beneath

 

In the deep place

Where imagination meets

Reality

Like the son his ever-absent father.

And stands nimble, young, and proud

Enduring those inept and callous words

Uttered in a speech without words

since the Great Time

“My have you grown…Taller, in fact since last we met”

 

A cold hardness meets this voice

The kind a woman wouldn’t understand

Yet brings with it a burning tenderness

That men hoard in brief moments of

Pleasure and pain.

 

My heart labors with the words

I have recited over a million times

but somehow lacked the courage to strike from my hand

Now spills, hot and raw, like fresh blood

From the sacrificial cow and paints words with my tongue

“Let this end…a man is man insofar

As he makes himself…within his-story.”

 

My words seed shapes

Grotesque and unique

And sow an unexpected spectacle

Of which the Greeks would have been proud

For a moment I became the world

In which I lived

The shouts, and hymns, the churning of the sea

 

But my city never lets go

And calls out my name

That eternal teacher

Demanding punctuality and

attendance even after

A weekend of revelry

 

Between Heaven and the Earth

Clouds go, eternally

Each to their own directions

Gathering themselves over oceans

until they cannot bear the weight of themselves

And speed back to Earth

Somehow creating life

yet sometimes…

Share the boundless sky.