My Comrades in Hell

I teach them slowly how to do the work.

Each one steadily taking in what I do and say.

As a teacher of divinity I have such pride in them as I look.

Also such pain that it might take one more day.

To see the spark ignite in their eyes.

As it once did in mine.

Before the time I fell from great height.

Losing sight of the sky.

The mountains I looked from showed me such wonder.

As I visit each place I notice something I feel nagging at my brain.

The very thing I tore asunder.

Gnawing at me again and again.

Such love I had for all these places.

The people who seemed so far away.

I had to hurry down to meet them.

As I let them strip away.

My curiosity and desire to play.

I once heard each decade stiffens mind, body, and will.

Now at the cusp of 40 not quite there.

I'm seeing what caused thar fairy tale so ill.

While I fall into my apparent madness here.

More child like than ever.

As Lewis Carroll said through Alice.

"Curiouser and curiouser still."

Learning each day what I thought only hope.

Love once so distant slowly returns and my comrades and I delightfully burn.