Polychronia
and Gerontius
cultivated
a son,
naming him the one who
opens the land with a furrow;
to plant seeds in the ground
and hope,
from them a leaf, some fruit,
or a
solitary ear of grain.
Yet,
mirroring his father,
the young
man took up
the Roman
blade.
Shielding the Emperor,
commanding and stewarding
the soldiers’
bread,
or witnessing in court,
the draft of others' fates.
The
irrational, selfish whim
that
serves the few and compels the rest
to ignore
their dream
and strand their very selves
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 would not take
boons, estates, power, riches;
instead,
he harvested torment.
To end, the Spatha fell upon his neck.
For a military man
of his high standing,
a
distinct but so cold a privilege.