A Poet Paces the Path

Here we are, July 18th. THAT day. The 12th anniversary of the poet laying pen to page and summoning into the universe the First Panther Cycle. It destroyed the world he was in the day before, and roughly shoved him through a birth canal of fire and blood that he would emerge through, months later, reborn (for better or worse) as the Poet Laureate of the Virtual Universe.

The irony of this label, this domain of honor, was that he did not and does not live in the wires and fibers of metal and glass, but in a flesh and blood world where those who have honored him have laid laurels and their own souls at his feet, and those who disapproved of his actions have banished him from their lives and even sought to take sometimes comical, sometimes awful, revenge upon him.

So here it is, before I take my earned break (something he can never do), a final handful of a dark pelt. It is the final poem of the final cycle, the 93rd. There have been others since her, some more worthy of his affections and his words, some pretenders merely seeking the same immortality that she captured, not by her own efforts, but by the heart of a man she could not stand beside when the terrible effects of his lonely devotion to promises made to her fell to him, alone to carry.

But this is what was said, and when it was said, he meant it in ways you and I may never, in our worlds of gray and glamour, never comprehend.

A Poet Paces the Path

there is a trail in the tall grass.
panthersigns obvious.
and I must follow them.
for, though cursed and crushed.
and ultimately, made tragedy,
this is my path.
my road.
my vision.
my destiny.
and, purified or pitied.
loved or laughed at.
rejected or raised.
it is where I will die.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

When's the last time you went 300 days with a single day off? Well, perhaps the poet s right and I need the break. As the poet has been known to say when asked of future plans, if I am alive, I shall be back. - EJ