96

What George Should Have Done

Heroes have ridden dragons time out of mind,

circling from the seafloor of the night

into the sun. Let it be said: they find

each bridled dragon hurtles into gay light.

Never to consecrate the hiss within

nor the enraged Shadow in the looking glass

does one don that mask, passionate with sin,

and give body to a foe that will not pass,

but that, straddling him thus, we train his face

into some new intensity of our own,

and, soaring to expanded time and space,

discover earth as our dearest touchstone.