Polychronia
and Gerontius
cultivated
a son,
naming
him as the one
who opens
the land with a furrow;
to set a
seed in the ground
and hope,
from it a leaf, some fruit,
a
solitary ear of grain.
Yet,
mirroring his father,
the young
man took up
the Roman
blade
to shield
the person of the Emperor,
to
command and steward
the soldiers’
bread,
or witness
within court,
the
drafting of the fates
that
would bind the people.
The
irrational, selfish whim
that
serves the few and compels the rest
to ignore
their dream
and
abandon their lives
was not
welcome in Nicomedia,
nor in
his native Cappadocia,
nor in
his mother’s homeland, Palestine.
Flavius
Georgios Cappadox,
in his
late twenties,
swiftly
tore to shred
the very
edict Diocletian
had just
entrusted to his guards
so that
once again Caesar Galerius
could
read the omens
in the
viscera of a sacrifice.
The
Tribune sought no boons,
nor
estates, nor riches;
instead,
he harvested his torment.
And
finally, the Spatha fell upon his neck
for a
military man of his standing,
a
distinct but cold privilege.