When Siegfried killed the dragon
guarding the chamber of his destiny,
the mazy cave of legendary echoes,
tasting its blood
he understood
the parlance of the birds
and unperfidious language of wildflowers
and recognized his teacher’s wheedling
purposed to wield him
to alien ends
an unknowing tool:
self-deluded in disillusionment,
estranged from his own purposes, astray,
he circled bewildered,
harrowed by furies
that drove him to distrust
even the overdose of dragon’s blood
that unstopped his ears to the earth’s voices
and purged his wits
of nice lies
delivering him at last
to the high rock-bound narrow windy pass
where the world falls away on both sides, there
to constellate
his fated stars.
