The Third Tortoise
Tortoise One was slow but sure.
No breaks for him.
He plodded to the finish line and kept going.
Win or lose, he was who he was
and would be so forever.
The second won a race
against Achilles,
the fastest of men.
Achilles pondered how far he had gone
and what it meant to go at all.
Tortoise Two cared nothing about the meaning of space or time.
He put one foot in front of another,
Tortoise Three won no race.
An eagle swooped down, grabbed him, flew high,
then to shatter his shell,
dropped him on a rock,
expecting an easy meal.
But the rock was the bald head of an old man
out for a walk.
The head cracked.
Aeschylus, the tragic playwright,
died in comic absurdity.
But the tortoise landed on his feet.
He had seen the world from on high.
a great man had died that he might live.
Today he walks proudly.
No plodder he.
Standing on the world,
even if he can’t understand it,
he keeps going at his own pace.
