___________________________..______________Will de Kypia

The Pillar’s Perspective,
or Lot’s Lady’s Lot

We left the city, fled across the plain.
Our world was about to be destroyed,
everyone we knew would soon be dead.

I took a final look at what I had
been, saying farewell to my past.

Was that so wicked?

Just outside the city walls we suddenly
heard the thunder of buildings collapsing.
Houses, theater, the palace, even the temple.

And the screams of people in agony.
They were my neighbors, friends, lovers.
Of course I stopped to watch them die.

As our journey continued the smoke of God’s wrath
rose higher, the firmament itself darkening in terror.
The earth began to shake, we could hardly stand up.

Wondering if the city survived,
I turned to gaze upon emptiness.

And became this thing. This
thing the others abandoned.

Creatures come to lick my body.

Gazelle, goats, wild boar, even
the foul scavenger dogs. Soon I’ll
be that place on the rocks where
the animals used to congregate.

No one will know my name or
remember the shape of my face,
though once men, yes and women
too, found me well worth looking at.

The girls are with their father.
Who has a weakness for wine.

I think he offered them to the townsmen.
Offered to exchange his own daughters
for the visitors. Now he and the girls are
together, somewhere, doing something.

I am what you see. Alone,
no longer a woman, a lump
of salt tongued by beasts.

It’s not fair.

Lot and His Daughters
Peter Paul Rubens
_______________________

Chiaroscuro

The dark is Might.
The light is Reason.

Might, the elder, emerged from the void
to confront chaos before the first dawn.

Reason, the frail younger sister, hid till the
turmoil ceased. Then she emerged to illumine
our path, guiding us with a shimmering radiance.

Until chaos returns. Until frail lovely Reason hides herself
once more, leaving Might, whose primal primogeniture
carries the birthright, to guide us with his darkness.

So we will now unsheathe the sword, take up
the cudgel, and follow him wherever he goes.

Perhaps Reason will come back some better day.

Light is fugitive.
Dark, perpetual.

The Cumberland Sprite
Unknown
__________________

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