"a Greater Prize than Story"

"a Greater Prize than Story"

is innocence not better than a life of experience? even if the resultant "art" must be sacrificed to "purity"?

~L. Page

Have I lived long enough, yet, my dear Professor?/With loss as death upon two lovers so wholly each other's/A love and a leave; "write what you know."/Isn't pain the stuff of great literature?/But need we have been so violated ourselves?

Or is perhaps innocence a greater prize than story?/Imagination sufficient for authentic empathy?/Still, we rape mind and words to redeem our fallenness./What of our entropy is really worth/Capturing and preserving as if it were art?

(c) 2008 Leah Randelle