Inter puteum et fontes

The well has been poisoned

The well has been poisoned.
And time only putrifies its unmoving surface.
Look down into the well.

Once you could see a rippling reflection.
Now verdant scum stares back.
Its very life is death for you.

Thales fell into this well.
And the Thracian handmaid laughed at him.
But it was a clear and musical laugh.

She laughed that he looked up at the stars and fell down into them.
For the stars were in the well.
He met the stars and he splashed and spluttered among them.

He drank of the cold starry water.
And knew that it was the essence of all things.

You cannot drink of it now.
And so you laugh that he fell into the well.
But it is a raucous and bitter laugh.

You cannot save the well.
You cannot clean it.
It is poisoned. Forever.

There is a new well.
Myriad new wells, pools of living water.
The sky reflects the stars within them

You know not of them.
You stare at the scum and wish it were clean.
But it is poisoned. Forever.

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