Twelve Years

 Man spends twelve years

        at the window

                of a primate enclosure

Worried 

they might get out

He adds mortar to the walls

Blotting out the 

sun

Cuts a moat 

at the edge

Fills it with water

Spills

Ground becomes

mud

Steps back to more

solid ground

Surrounded by mud and moat and mortar

Man looks around

Man spends twelve years

        at the window

                of a primate enclosure

Until one day someone

        opened the door

               and he stepped out.

World so bright he was blind

But he took their hand and walked 

Promised if he walked through the shadows

he would see again

Man spent twelve years in a primate enclosure.