The Hardening

The Hardening, from outside-in

Quickly grows inside-out

Inspiring fear, I see, feel fear

On others’ breath. The fear becomes mine,

I become the other. This it is

A wedge I drive to divide myself

Control is as savage and untamable as fire. 

It is the turnings screw 

What drives the widening Gyre.

How can a man, capable of so much, 

Be so little? Man is only that: a man

What makes me one is the hardening,

For it is mine and Everyman’s

The second coming Is more a birth of soul,

Born in the manger of our hollow hearts.

And it is WE, not some other beast, that we that 

Slouches unseen towards Bethlehem to be born.

Not with a whimper, but with a bang.