VII: Alcibiades

I imagine Alcibiades not caring that his long legs and conspiring smile consume his elder Socrates as slowly and inevitably as the sea wastes sand. I imagine his not understanding how the paradigm of intellect must use him for his soft dangling secrets and his tight, tense thighs. How could it be otherwise, since Socrates himself in his inmost soul is being used?

Even as hours,
even as thoughts,
even as we,
our minds decay.
Hence Thomas Aquinas
built on clay.
The Blessed Doctor's
temples of light
will last a day.
Abelard
in Eloise
found solid form.
She could at least
relieve the night.
But he was no more clever,
for even Eloise
was powerless to keep
a mind and body warm
forever.

Time and the monstrous regiment of older men (it seems) have been kinder to Socrates: while he recurs in a thousand books and courses and even flickers occasionally through the air waves, Alcibiades, used, is widely forgotten.