The Death of the Chimera

It was you, sweet mystery
That took my sight
You were the last unknown
The final enigma in a world mined bare of its illusions
And secrets

I hunted you down, oh yes
My sight gone but for your figure
Brilliant afterimage in my mind's eye
Oh how I longed
To take from you
As you so tenderly stole from me

Finally in the last vast wilds
I found you
I took you down
With ropes and saws and guns
Nothing more than an animal now
How I savored what I took from you then

That day I killed your story
Your fantasy, shroud that keeps you so well wrapped
In your shackles, so shameful, so humbled
Illusion ripped away
Children weep
They know what I have done
Adults applaud uncertainly; to kill a mystery is just, no?

But you, kind pet, you know what you have done,
Unwittingly but irrevocably
As I too, looking back on the years, know what I did
And feel regret
The world’s last mystery died behind bars, before prying human eyes
You, enigma
You were the last thing I ever saw
The last mystery of the world
And for that I am grateful