Sing, O voice of memory,
of the age wrapped in mirrors,
where men walk upon polished floors
and mistake reflection for truth.
Here values are not grown from soil or blood,
not hammered in fire nor earned by sacrifice,
but minted in quiet rooms
by hands that never touched the plow or shield.
They are light as ash,
yet enforced as law.
They teach the lone man to despise his strength,
and the many to fear their own cohesion.
They call appetite virtue,
submission wisdom,
and name the withering of the soul
a necessary progress.
From childhood the song is whispered:
“Yield, adapt, consume”
From manhood it is shouted:
“Obey, perform, comply”
From old age it is mourned:
“You were free, once, though you never knew it”
The body is softened,
the spirit dissolved,
the will trained to bend
before it ever learns to stand.
Sharp edges are filed away,
rituals emptied,
heroes reduced to cautionary tales.
Yet always, always,
they sell the dream.
A future of ease without effort,
of pleasure without cost,
of belonging without duty,
of meaning without burden.
A horizon that retreats with every step,
like mist before the sun,
forever promised, never reached.
They give bright tokens instead of honor,
numbers instead of names,
comfort instead of purpose.
And when the heart grows restless,
they offer distraction,
when it grows angry, sedation,
when it grows proud, ridicule.
O sorrowful age,
where the individual is weakened
in the name of the collective,
and the collective hollowed
in the name of the individual,
until neither stands whole.
Still the old gods watch in silence,
their temples buried, not destroyed,
their laws unbroken, only forgotten.
They wait, as they always have,
for the moment when the lie collapses
under its own weight.
For no world built against the nature of man
can stand forever.
No dream forged to unmake the dreamer
can endure the waking.
And when the false dawn fades,
and the night grows honest again,
those who remember how to stand,
how to choose,
how to bear meaning and consequence,
will be the seed of whatever comes next.
So ends the lament,
not in hope,
but in remembrance.