Primary Source

My mind is like a telescope
    gazing upon the mists of time
    the dawn of history
    long forgotten (some say destroyed,
        but others say it was never there to begin with)
    But right now, all I have is
a sense of swirling wind around me
    blowing through my hair
    stinging my eyes
    cold frost biting my hands
        Time shimmers and blurs,
and light becomes darkness, earth and sky become void

My mind is like a telescope
    staring into the bright burning vastness of the beginning of time
    thousands of millions years bearing down upon me
Yet ever doubting the truth of what I see
--is that a star,
    or the random scintillation of stray light?
    My imagination or reality?
A lie that I hoped was true?
    Truth that I never wished to see?
But I can only look for so long
    The vacuum of present reality
    sucks me back into its little bottle
and Time rushes around me like a raging waterfall
    and history blurs, all muddled
        like a stagnant puddle stirred up
    by the whipping winds of a hurricane
    I see
people, lives, bouncing around, smashing into each other
    like atoms, like billiard balls
        in a dance of frenzied violence and beauty
and, in my madness (the clearest vision I've ever had)
    I see him
        his name is Kagawasan
            Freedom
        standing in the whirling confusion of chaos
    only a spear in his hand
        a useless piece of wood
            with a sharp rock on its end
    (but what choice did he have?)
        arrayed against the Enemy
        and their fire and explosions
    that'll obliterate him in less than a breath
    turn him to ash, and scatter him to the winds
        Still, he pierces that metal, unfeeling
            shell of the Enemy
        stabbing through steel then flesh
        The Enemy's heart is ripped to shreds
    But the Enemy never needed a heart anyway...

    Yet the current of Time sweeps me away again
        like a tree branch drowning in the river
        never to see or to be seen again
    I see countless thousands upon thousands die
        seas of people, lives, surging forward like living water
            in a lifeless desert
        fighting, dying, for freedom (but what does that mean?)
        evaporating into nothingness
            with the burning touch of the Enemy

The river turns to steam - life evaporates
And history is enshrouded in a fog of death
and all I can see are my hands - 
    They say you can see the future upon them, lines crisscrossing the
Plains of Fate
            small hands - 
    will turn the wheel of Time and steer Destiny's course
            my hands - 
    are stained with the blood of all those before me
    and I bear a debt that shall never be repaid
And I wonder - is it really Freedom that I seek?

Kagawasan's spear cleaves into my heart
The sunlight shatters in my sky
Time stops its maddening rush,
lurches forward like a toppling tree
    before coming to a grinding halt
Time spits my battered body out into the
    cold darkness of reality
My telescope lenses are scratched
        (can I ever see the truth again?)
    corrupted, splattered, seared and melted
        with what I have seen