The scales fell from his eyes,
and for the first time he saw
the nothingness in their stare,
the empty ache of their longing,
the unbridgeable distance between their hearts;
he knew no going back.

The scales had been
both curse and grace;
the former he'd known;
the latter caught him unprepared.

And now what?
Once the scurf flakes away,
how then does one live?

Seeing demands compassion.
Only the blinkered
trudge toward mercilessness.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.