The Old, Acceptable Nature (Hourinthias)

...and in the forest

behind, she heard the

creeping Hourinthias

still making her way

determinedly after,

one clawed hand

extending the pieces

of shell in pitiable,

hateful supplication.

Aristhene set her face,

forbid herself to hear

and rode out of the trees...

-----

Aristhene and Hourinthias

---

Verse VII

-----

Book VII, Chapter XI

-----

The Legends of Seven Counts

-----

The myth still clings with insect's hairy

limbs to the sidewalls of my heaving brain.

Seven counts- the oldest legends of sacred

numbers and times- still trouble my sleep.

Hourinthias! A dark stain you are, seeping into

the fabric of history. Well did the prophets warn

of your coming. I have seen what evil you have

done unto my own; myth or truth or fact, still;

I see what evil you have wrought in these times.

My own, the old, acceptable nature still holds

you in sway. Troubled with visions of the Senate

rising against you, you build careful eggshell empires

to hold your words safe. Even my most valiant efforts

at redemption for you result in little more than

the shedding of this piece, or that. See, behind you

Hourinthias, doe-eyed, ludicrous creature, picks up

the fallen piece in her clicking claws, and proffers it,

thrusts it into your succumbing hand. I was granted

no weapons of the gods, but merely a path I could

tread. Hourinthias dogs my steps, makes crude signs

to me, heaving her ponderous body towards me in

offers of friendship. No alliance have I made with her,

and yet she calls my in her scraggling voice; 'Come,

come to me. I will give you pretty shells to hide in."

No liar am I, no slave of the old, acceptable nature.

And yet I know what she sees me as; I am to her a crawling,

naked thing. Fine words? A noble path? She knows

only the pleasure of covering over a creature with an

eggshell. Oh, sanity, forsake me not, for Hourinthias

will never see me for a proud, dark-haired lover, artist,

but only a naked creature she must ridicule into hiding.

She cannot see me riding out unfraid; only she sees that

I have no shell; and knows that I must fear. No reasoning,

No protest will send her away. She follows me, just out of

sight. I know to well what use there is in ignoring her.

My own, well did the prophets warn that you must

struggle like new birds from your shells. Well did they

speak of the troubled times of Hourinthias. The old,

acceptable nature clings, flylike, to your skins. Cast

it to earth slowly; turn away your face-

wage battle against the ill-favored Hourinthias.