Parable

 

Big black buzzing blow fly

Bumps against a window pain

A grown-up maggot, trapped

By what he cannot see

 

How can he see, how can he know

How can he even understand

This thing that holds him back

From going where he wants to go

 

His too small world-view

Does not, cannot encompass glass

Nor even less, the taste of freedom

Flying free not yet a dream

 

Hemmed in by a window pane

This invisible boundary line

Between the fly and fly’s beyond

Cuts fly of from what fly sees

 

Spent, he drops exhausted, down

Crouching now upon the sill

Behind the blind

that also keeps him from the room

 

Hunted, haunted, trapped

No where to go nor yet to stay,

There is no safety in this place

Only anxious futile flapping

 

Blocked from turning back

Home, to its place of maggot-hood

Perplexed and thwarted dies

Crushed by circumstances

 

In the shape of a fly swatter.