The desert-dweller lived with arid ground and thirsty mouth
for a long time. But upon the charm of one new moon
and with inspiration from the correspondent stars,
it began its walk for water.

The desert-dweller had been walking for ten days when the voice first spoke.
"See you not the ripples of the water ahead? See you not the virtue of reason?
Of Humanism? And of Society?
Does not the drinking of every fellow-feeling human person beg
for celebration in all things, and for sacrifice in many?"

The desert-dweller shuffled along.

After ten more days, the voice made itself known once again.
"See you not the ripples of the water ahead?"
To drink from the endless ocean water of Christ is to thirst no more
--even in all of your wandering,
all things bare witness to his eternal compassion."

The desert-dweller shuffled along.

In time perhaps these sands of ticking clocks may justly strike
upon the desert-dweller a hedonistic vision:
"See you not the ripples of the water ahead?
See you not the virtue of the skin? Of the smoke, and of sloth?
Has the Demiurge cursed your senses? Is it piety and narcissism
that keep you from indulging in your sensuality?"

Surely in these cosmically-humiliating circumstances,
these haunted inquiries, these phantasms, continued ad infinitum,
the lost solipsist will fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.