Did I choose, to be a necessary cog?

Was I missed, after I was up, and gone?

Were they heard, my sophist monologues?

Did they sink roots, or were they scattered straw?

Heard, were they more than just a catalog

Of half-remembrance, all meaning foregone,

Learned like earning chits, striver’s lexicon,

As means of exchange, the sine qua non-

Laddering a half-understanding, from eclogue

To epic, forms to essence, a pantheon

Transubstantiated, exchanged upon

Our appointed days, to fill-in blanks, fog

Of things half-mastered before time was up,

The cogs turned–and we were all gone?