The man is sky and woman is the earth;
the night is bad and daytime is benign;
Apollo sun, his sister moon: the birth
of these ideas is obvious. Design
a unicorn, but make him male and white,
and have him governed only by the pure.
Declare the snake the enemy, indict
the wolf and scorpion, and grow more sure
with every year the symbols mirror real.
A fable that explains a mystery
is tellable and loaded with appeal,
supports itself with its own history,
imprisons thought, and trims each point of view
as it constructs a wall before the true.