The Night We Heard Dragons by Richard VinceBeneath the surface of central London,
We thought we found the place where
The dragons sleep. We felt the heat of
Their slumbering breath, heard the rumble
Of their gently fearsome snores, sensed
The sharpness of their hibernating minds.
In the years that followed,
Our senses dulled until they lost
The ability to tell us anything
About the world outside ourselves.
We became echo chambers, an isolated
Insular nation writing its own history,
Believing its own mythology, clinging
Ever more desperately to the promise
Of a future that was never to come.
The price we paid was the present,
Leaving life for purgatory in
Unsure, uncertain hope of reaching a heaven
That seemed further from our grasp
The more we stretched to reach it.
When we finally realised we had
Gone the wrong way, we returned to find
That paradise was what we were
Running from; we understood at last that
Joy is a journey and not a destination.
06/11/2017 Posted on 07/01/2017 Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince
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