Ancient poets, I long to meet you.
Friends of the gods,
Axial sages,
Tellers of a truth
Like gathered glass,
Malleable and hot,
Still pure,
Like man before the fall,
The real one,
When experience became dogma,
And acceptance, belief.
When faith, like a plague,
Was carried by rats
Into our midst.

[S.R. Hardy is a poet, fiction writer, and translator whose work has appeared in venues such as Mythic Circle, Eunoia Review, Eternal Haunted Summer, the Beorh Quarterly and anthologies such as The Shining Cities, Beyond the Pillars, and Northern Traditions. He is currently at work on a variety of poems, stories, and translations.]