Telos


We were children of the time of the anti-telos,
   the nihil ex nihilo, the horizon's end,
yet we fell, as though falling were somehow a cure for our lacking,
   as though perhaps falling down or falling in love or being the fall guy
   were an answer to the rough darkness.
These were small lies, 
   but they were indeed enough to keep us on the ground 
   and looking downward.
It only takes one lie believed, one eidolon worshipped.

You and I stood at the horizon's end, the end of history, 
   the end of the world, looking at the others there.
They saw the horizon and either dove forwards into the nothing that they 
   believed they saw or began dancing about in a hedonist's fury.
We tried to stop some of them, to pull them up to look with us and see 
   what there was to see, but they believed lies, 
   and we didn't have the Truth, anyway.
It only takes one lie believed.

Then, as a curtain is parted, the cool-clear sibilance of light of light
   descended and was one of us.

The Truth had come to us.  Why did we see him?
   I don't know why we saw him, but we did.
And when the Truth comes to you,
   you don't go through his wallet; you shake his hand and give him 
   that hug that you should be giving him.
And then there is no horizon, and the lies, 
   the words which contend with words, are gone.
For a word can always contend with a word, but what word
   can contend with Life?

We knew the Life, the Truth, by means of the image.
We saw the Way by means of the image,
   because he made the image himself.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; 
   but then face to face: 
Now I know in part;
   but then shall I know even as also I am known.