The poet awoke in a dark and desolate place, remembering only that he was a poet. He did not remember what poetry was, what sense could be made of the beauty of words. But, still, he remembered that he was a poet.

He found, scrawled on notes, strewn across the cavern floor, a series of stories. On the first, he found that he had written: “Time is a misery in which we all swim; poetry is the vessel by which we are borne, to better bear the turgid waters.” He found the sentiment pleasing, and wondered if he could ever reproduce it. He wondered, also, whether anyone would ever see these words of his.

On the next note, entitled “Cassandria,” he read of a land where words were never spoken, save in times of great torment. In this silent world, largely unheard and unhurt, the only sounds to ever escape a human’s lips were great and powerful shouts, each demanding–from their own, reverberating corners–help.

It’s a strange thing. A balladeer can open his jaw and sing so sweetly, garnering an immediate audience on the subway platform, as well as the occasional clatter of coins. But what poets, what storytellers, can so successfully advertise their skills? What words could one say to bring the crowds around oneself, as a dreamer might pull the sheets over, to keep back the night’s cold fingers, to warm the well-worn patches of a lonely soul.

Alone, in his own corner of this cavern, he knew that there were countless others throughout the cavern’s many echoing halls, that they were suffering, cold and hungry–even if he might not find them. In earlier days, he could saunter in the streets, and, with one, single, sweet, succulent or savory scent, could summon an army of hungry disciples. Joy could be found easily, in scoopfuls, pouring over, ladled out with bountiful ease to those hungry and homeless.

But here, in this cavern, he could feel, helpless, in every moment, the hunger of this tiresome world. From the cold, damp clouds of his breath, this universal hunger seeped into his skin; and yet, his own hunger remained–what word? what word could answer this hunger? Perhaps if he could just find the tone, he could, in supreme tenderness, whisper “love” and, with that name, tame the wild beasts of every human heart, his included.

In earlier days, he could have been a conductor; could have softened the spines of even those rigid professionals that had mastered themselves, who had, in the process of self-mastery, lost that sensitivity which had characterized their incontinent childhoods; could swoon in strings and blast in brass and pound in bombastic percussion, so that life’s tones would again be palpable to those well-dressed couriers of knowledge who had become numb, dull and painless.

And even if he could find a word that was never heard, even if such an absurd word could, nonsensically, whisper its hidden meaning into his heart, how would he ever be understood? He found himself tasked, impossibly, with curing obstinate dogs who never recognize their remedy. What hero could be so gold as to make us forget our own spoiled skin, and what metaphor could so tightly intertwine symbol and meaning as to make us forget that we are all, singly, suspended?

In the absence of love, he was magnanimous. He could not imagine what features of a face could ever make him favor one over another, when all, equal, share a soul.  What flesh, when burnt, could salivate his tongue? Nothing. He lusted for no curve nor contour; in the darkness of that cavern, he drank, only, water. Nothing could warrant the angry mashing and gnashing of teeth, nothing could invoke the green evils of jealousy nor envy; no thorns could grow on his soul. The soft drip of overhanging waters and the thunderous crash of boulders were each, in equal measure, the most beauteous sound to ever make music in his head.

But, still, he was a poet, and he had forgotten poetry. In this, his sorry, sorrowful and serene state, he could not help but ask: “What words, ever, could I utter? What words do you, my dear reader, need? What words, best, will have softened this hunger, when I will have spoken them?”