The Last Apple

They hung the last public school teacher today
Pedagogy was now, blasphemous, heresy…and she had been warned
The coarse rope made a twisting, grotesque, fiber on wood sound
As the hellish wind and the crowd “oohed” together
Her young legs, slender, imperfect, full of life moments before
Now twitched…once…twice, and then a final time
A man…heavy of jowl and countenance brought forth the “Good Book”
‘Twas the “only book,” he sanctimoniously instructed, his voice
Now rising to fever pitch, as the crowd stood, muted, transfixed
Then, at the mere pointing of a corpulent finger, they moved in unison
Shuffling, murmuring they marched to nearby cars and trucks bringing forth “yesterday”
Crates of books…boxed civilization, the bound works of secular humanity
A pyramid of literary genius and history took shape, built beneath newly dead feet
The swaying, swinging body attached to the rope, fingers limp, stared unaware
The “library of lies” the now sweating, rotund man offered to rapidly darkening skies
“We shall all be cleansed by the fires of divine and omnipotent providence”
Gasoline was spread by one frenetic onlooker, then another and yet another
A match was thrown…the acrid smell of burning flesh spiraled maliciously aloft
And seven millennia of mortal innovation seared the nostrils of the faithful
A blast of wizened wind carried aloft a single page, singed, a mere scrap
Blackened letters, scorched symbols of yesteryear…”To be or not to…
To land in a small patch of unlikely, undisturbed, fertile earth
Now each spring, new flowers arise, a coronation of colors, a bed of…ideas
That will, once again, upon the culmination of mankind’s darkest hour
Inspire and elucidate those yearning for knowledge, testifying to power of pen
And to visions of tolerance and wisdom once treasured and soon to be
Awaiting rediscovery… somewhere, on the “ink stained” path of yesterdays…teachers