WANDERER
‘Wanderer’ is my name. Widely have I searched since my youth
The realms of honey for the golden keys to truth¹
And the greatest realities; having searched, I bring back the fable
Of myself - and hearing is believing - to grace your table,
If you’ll give me rest at your hearth. If regret if your waking
Leaves you confused by sagacity you were not designed for -
How else could I ensure that my talk would be such as you have a mind for
And my thoughts take root in the soil your mind is making?
MIME
Wanderer, there may well be ideas, fictionally wrought,
Recurring and seemingly permanent, that engage your thought
Of what is fundamental and true - but ‘truth’ is your word
For conveying approval of the sound of your voice, my word
For scientific information. I do not step into your head
To explain how myth with reality fails to bed,
While scientists insert of themselves heart and soul.
I know my own mind. Be gone, fable, from this console!
WANDERER
In banishing me, you annihilate your mind, as mythic
As I, who gave it you! Use it - and use it quick -
And you will redeem it. Consider, all that you relegate
To the dead concerns of myth is your intuitive pate:
Upon the thought of myth the myth of your thought
Hangs, where science and reductionism are set at nought ²
¹ Honey is a symbol for the higher self, where the pollen of daily experience is transmuted into the sweetness of knowledge and virtue;
it thus represents complete integration of the self. Philosophical wisdom is symbolised by a golden key.