tradition

❝ you are tired of burning troy, and laughing helen, and screaming cassandra, and the wooden horse.
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you are tired of the follies of men whose heels and whose hearts will destroy them, of men who grasp after women in the face of calamity, of men who die in the shape of their love.

and then one day, you dream.

in the dream, sand blows across your feet, hot and rasping, under a sky so blue it blazes white, and the sun shines against a mosque that is only palm fronds lashed together.

in the dream, you hear the call to remembrance in the clear voice of a freed man, and it rings in your chest like a stone being lifted.

in the dream, water flows from dry earth with the drum-beat of a baby’s heels, and the baby laughs, his tears drying, and the mother cries, her tears joyous.

in the dream, there is a city, and a lover, most beloved, saying, believe, believe, believe.

in the dream, a company of angels rear against a battlefield, shining and terrible and vast, like a sandstorm of light. the enemy flees.

you wake from this dream with shame burning you, like the kiss of a disappointed mother on your brow. ❞ ​

—how sorry you are that your tradition is a stranger