What Plato Said to Socrates

He has to know they’ll never
understand, yet he keeps talking –
Why does he keep trying?
Doesn’t he care about me at all?
They’re all too buried deep in caverns,
listening to their juicy music,
thinking about how to earn money
or get into bed with each other,
and he’s going on about the truth.
Dig deep, he tells them, and they look
at him like, We don’t have shovels, dude.
If it’s in them, I don’t see it.
What I see is the mob, the gulp of poison,
then me – aimless wanderer, the guy
strolling around saying, Remember when
he used to teach us?
Remember that?  They probably won’t.

-- JD DeHart