Perceiving all, not knowing what he knew,

In bliss complete, observer and observed,

Knowing, alone: imagined change, and grew.

Out here, where every moment touches now,

Conceived of life, and brought forth other souls,

And shaped the spheres of mind and soul and time

Where we with time could live and set our goals.

Each nebula and every lepton matter

And every soul will choose, and care, and mind

Can heal potentials into what is known

Not simply glorious, but graced and kind.

In time to know ourselves, to change, to learn,

For souls to grow through lives, to gain the scope,

Of consciousness, out here where all is one

Where Zeus invented change, and with it, hope.

Nourished, sustained, by this eternity,

Part of its endless moment’s boundless bliss

We live our little lives to stretch our souls,

And conscious, here, make real all that is.

Thus in this no-time, every time in one,

Many in harmony make up one voice,

Where only Father sang, we all sing now:

A miracle of time and free-won choice.

And being here is always, not an end,

There’s no before or after, all are here,

And all are elsewhere, with the universe

And nothing’s truly lost, so have no fear.

As Time was birthed, Fate and Necessity,

The guardians at the gate, the speed of light,

Emerged to keep both time and space apart

So souls in time could know themselves aright.

I didn’t seek for Knowledge, for I knew—

Was knowledge there, as she was Poetry,

And Love, and Guide, and Smith, and Trickster too,

Each full potential of all soul could be.

I couldn’t choose or change, there was no time,

Was all time, none, infinity was all,

Until Necessity took hold, and anchored, drawn,

One into three, our coming out a fall.

We landed with a jolt in the Underworld, at the bank of the river Lethe. (It’s full of brightly colored fish. I don’t understand why nobody ever mentions that. I suppose they must forget all about them.) I looked at Athene. There was nothing to say. Moments before, in the eternal moment, we had been entirely open to each other. I knew now why she hadn’t trusted me, and she knew that she could have, that I had learned the lesson that had been one of her many purposes in setting up the Republic. She knew I thought she was irresponsible, and I knew that she thought the gain in knowledge was worth any risk.