Nemo moriturus praesumitur mentire

When we imagine
Plato’s cave, we don’t
Picture them in chains,

But see them sidling
In from the entrance,
Following their own

Shadows, their torches
High, inverted moths
Drawn toward the dark,

People clambering
Deeper and deeper
Into the caverns

As they’ve been doing
Since—when? A hundred
Thousand years? Or more?

Where are they going?
They want to follow
Where their shadows point.

They want the portal,
The exact portal,
The threshold passage

Where life becomes death,
But they can’t see it.
Always it’s further

Or already crossed.
They’re trapped in the cave,
Unable to go

All the way over,
Turn shadows themselves
And come back as such.

But they crawl in there,
Trying to exist
Right where the dark starts.