Disclaimer: Star Trek is the property of Paramount/Viacom. This poem is the property of Karen Fleming and is copyright (c) 1977 by Karen Fleming. Originally published in Furaha #5.

Natira

Karen Fleming

Natira, you Child of Darkness, Child of Faith, what

sort of wisdom set your people on their course

shackled to ignorance -- to Blind Faith enforced by

pain and death? Such a price to pay for knowledge!

Yet your faith is not so unusual in its harshness,

in its inflexibility. Blind Faith is the death of

Reason, the crutch of the lazy, the tool of many

"Leaders of Men." Thus is it with all True Religions.

By the Gods, there are so many True Religions!

And you, Natira, High Priestess of the People, Child

of Faith, you stand like stone. Your soft face as

immobile as the Sacred slab behind you. Where is

the smile you gave him -- that wanderer who found

you, who unleashed the glittering laughter in your

eyes? But that is the legacy they left you; you,

the High Priestess of the People, Child of Darkness,

bound by taboos beyond breaking.

He could never live within the boundaries they set

you ... the endless string of don't don't don't...

Never again to be allowed to use his mind freely...

So the currents of life bore him away.

And what will you do, Natira, on that fateful day

when your "world" reaches its destination?

Will you smile again, Natira?

Will you laugh and roll like a puppy in the grass?

Will you open your mind and heart to the

infinite possibilities of your new home?

Or

will you shrink inside the globe you called home

for all your life with the others too old or

too set in their ways to change?

What, Natira, will you do?