He stands with his back to the world,

teetering on the edge of a cliff,

trapped in the twilight hours of day and night.

 

His laughter is nervous,

sends waves of fear up his spine.

He doesn't speak a word.

Everything we need to know is buried in the dark pitch of his eyes,

where the shadow of the moon hides.

 

The waves, more than two hundred feet below, sing their hypnotic song.

 

He runs his hands through his hair,

feels the weight of his head and thinks

of his skull, a future listening shell

lying on the dark ocean bed

and of his body, decomposed

and turned to grit and mixed with the sand.

 

Again, his eyes, blind at the root

to all that could save him, shift

over the horizon at the birds winging

their way across the sky.

 

The past beats inside his chest

like a second heart and here now he stands,

out of tune with the animal within.

We see he's given up all hope

and is letting this wind of darkness blow through his mind.

 

And so, we come to that question.

Will he jump? Will he close his eyes on the way down?

Will the sensation of falling, that illusion of flight,

overwhelm and set him free?

Will his soul come shrieking out of him,

screaming in panic, or will it wait silently

for the killing impact of the waves?

 

He steadies himself to look over the edge

and notices Pandora's box sat at his feet.

He starts to feel faint and the incident

that led him here starts to flash

through his mind like a freight train.

 

He sees young Pandora again

in her candy-cane yellow dress,

walking along the lane, untouched

by sin and carrying that small black box

and the urge hits him like a bullet to the heart.

 

He must have the box; he must take it,

open it and learn the secrets it holds inside.

 

The secrets of humanity, of our true,

misguided place on this earth

and the consequence of our history.

 

And so he approaches her from behind,

taking out his knife and snatching

her head back and with one quick

swipe, he cuts her throat

and she falls limply to the floor.

 

He drops the knife, picks up the black box.

He sees his blood red hands and lets out

a scream, then runs blindly

to this place we find him now,

on this cliff edge with the silent shadows

in the trees watching.

 

He drops to his knees, looks up

to the heavens and clasps his hands in prayer.

He shouts out,

"Please God, forgive me this sin,

this evil thing I have done,

please send some sign of my forgiveness."

 

So we wait for a sign of forgiveness:

a cloudburst, an eclipse, a rainbow, a shooting star,

to tell him everything is alright again with the world.

 

But, we see no shooting stars.

Instead he opens up the box

and hears the song of Gaia,

the chant of Mother Earth rise up

and she sings to him a song of sacrifice.

 

A wind picks up, a heavy wind

that throws up dust and pulls up trees,

the man stands, trying to find his feet 

and in one swift gust he is blown

over the edge of the cliff and down,

flying through the air, his arms flailing

but a smile escaping from his face,

and his laughter, again that morbid sincerity

of his laughter, until finally,

he crashes into the waves

and disappears, swallowed

by the violent ocean

and washed away to be joined

once again with the earth, the sea, the grain and the grit

that makes up this world of ours.

 

We bow our heads

and join as one

with everything we have learned

and everything we need to erase.