! ! D E M E N T I A

Chopped root, in the dark subsoil of the mind; protected only by its own forgetfulness; seeking occasionally, with weak desperation for the light it once (perhaps?) remembers; stabbing their own nearest, dearest kin with the cold steel of unrecognition as if of some betrayal: one day, a glance, a careful question: ‘Are we… related? ’ And you – you have been singled out for this unexplained great test which gods within, without, us have devised: call upon all you’ve ever learned, lived, won, been gifted: love these beloved strangers beyond all bonds, all bounds.