Apology to a Genius
From Wikipen
Even from birth you were running.
No time nor need to crawl, nor desire.
By the time we learned to walk
you were flying, fleet and nimble,
so far ahead we could not even see
where you had gone.
You had wings to reach the heavens—
and we locked you up,
because chains were all we knew.
Yet you did not condemn,
you did not vilify,
did not even show your frustration
with the burdens we placed upon you
to slow your flight,
but merely looked upon them
as challenges to overcome.
Perhaps you hated us right then,
when you felt the sting
of knowing that your greatest joy
was others' greatest fear.
Perhaps it was only pity
that we would never know
the only happiness you found.
But you kept on going,
for yourself, though it drove you
further and further away
from those who would seek to save you
from your own isolation.
You couldn't live any other way.
Only now, much later,
have our plodding steps
caught up with your swift flight.
And it is too late to apologize
for the wrongs we committed
in our ignorance.
Instead we pay you
the left-handed tribute
of profiting by your achievement
now that it is too late to thank you.
Yet there are those
who would wish you to know
what greatness you conceived,
of what worth has been
the fruits of your effort.
But you already knew it.
