I. DILEMMA

Withheld and held within,
Aeneas wanders the world.
Born of the gods,
Betrayed by Destiny,
Aeneas seeks to know
Meaning in the midst of emptiness.
There are no songs...
No music...
No words defining moments...
Only the incessant present droning...
The future, inert and glacial,
Lies frozen, motionless...
A Newtonian Universe
Where Time and Space
Unwind to a frigid nothingness.
Imprisoned by the Past,
Aeneas struggles to remember
His path steered by ancient code
Fusing Deities and humankind.
His recollections seem remote,
A desolate landscape
Of forgetfulness.

II. MEMORIES OF TROY

Remember, Aeneas...
Time is a canvas...
Ancient and modern worlds coexist...
In an elegant, intertwining tapestry.

Troy lies buried beneath the centuries,
Its wretched ruins
Submerged and silent.
Its valiant cause
Laid waste by vandal warriors
And victimized by war's deceit.
The gleaming city glows
Only in remote corridors of remembrance.
I can still see the temple
Where Cassandra stood,
A silhouette
Against the alabaster columns.
Her eyes, embracing me,
Draw me along an irresistible path.
She was an oasis from the tempest
Of raging hatred.
Lined with olive trees,
Pathways map familiar routes
Beneath a golden sun and bright blue skies.
Shimmering on the Aegean Sea...
A paradise to sustain us forever,
But now for nevermore.

III. CASSANDRA

Eyes unraveling the essence...
Hands healing the wounds of war...
Arms shielding against the tumult...
Her gaze could penetrate
The fabric of Time
Revealing the substance
Of things to come.
Did I desert Cassandra?
She made me leave,
And I never knew her fate.
I argued with her...
Demanded that she flee
With our children...
With me...
But she had whispered,
"You must go, Aeneas...
For the sake of our love
I must stay...
Your destiny requires
That you become a hero---
I cannot love a hero."

She knew the core
Of my being
Beyond myself
Beyond adventures
And heroic acts...
She knew I would betray her
And myself.
She was my muse,
My secret source
Empowering me to be myself.
Now her love,
Her vision
Redeems the promise
Of returning...

IV. DISTRACTIONS (UNDERWORLD)

Personal demons...
Dragons of destruction,
Pursue Me.
Seized by guilt,
I struggle with memories
Of Troy and Cassandra...
Hades points an accusing finger:
"Aeneas abandoned Cassandra,
Dooming her forever!"
Flanked by his demonic henchmen,
Thanatos and Hypnos,
The ferryman Charon,
And the hound of Hell, Cerberus,
Hades has vowed to destroy me
By refusing my return to the world.
But before Charon can make a blockade
My father, Achises and the Trojan Warriors,
Emerging from the shadows,
Intervene and warn---
"Go Back, Aeneas!
Return to Rome!"
A litany chanted as a cantillation,
A captured covenant of desperation
Challenging me with the Past,
Irretrievable and irrevocable,
Urging me to seize the future
And this moment of defiance
To shape a different destiny.
I escape to the golden glow
Of a new world emerging
From a crystal chrysalis
Silent and slumbering
In the psyche and soul
Of the species we are
Becoming...

V. QUEST (Western Hemisphere)

We need new coordinates,
Unique Processes,
New arenas of activity
Diverse maps
Charting new worlds....
The quest...
The search for answers...
The Americas
With promises to keep...
Bound only by oceans
And limits of imagination,
Continents drifting over eons
Splitting off from Europe
And Africa
In a gigantic geological mitosis.
Mountains and plains migrate
Across a planet
Creating fresh possibilities...
An alchemy of plate tectonics
In infinite realignment.
My return to Rome requires
Mapping the world anew.
But Charon,
Menacing emissary of Hades,
Attempts to force me back
To the Underworld.
Remembering Charon's weakness,
I bribed him once again
With the golden bough!

There is a kingdom
Created long ago
From my lost wanderings from Thracia
Now, hiding unclaimed promises...
Rome calls me
With new melodies and monuments.

In our historic quest,
Each continent became a new world,
A new stage of our upward thrust
Toward freedom and the stars.
Now we must create
Our own worlds
From the debris
Of failed experiments.

VI. ADVENTURE (Asia)

The quest begun,
Adventure leads me to the East
There, the resonance of solitude
Requires that I relinquish
Ideologies and surrender
To an inner knowing
Informed by silence...
A spiritual unraveling
Of ancient strands of being.
In the midst of meditation
Thanatos sinuously invades
This secret realm
With his fatal embrace
To return me to Hades
But my immersion,
My meditation
Makes me immune
And invisible

Novas explode
Into new worlds
And suddenly I see
Through the illusions
Of inner and outer worlds...

Heroes are tormented
By the struggles
Of identity
To win multitudes
To some persuasion...

I have never known myself.
My struggles...
My agonies...
My homeless wanderings
Have shaped
A false identity
Which only Time
Can unmask...

VII. DOUBT (Middle East/Africa)

Be aware, beware,
Aeneas.
There in the desert
Is an oasis
Where Cassandra waits
With her love to quench
The yearning of lost dreams.

The wind blows the sands
Shaping the dunes
And dimly I see a form...
Cassandra smiling
Where Love is revealed...
But Hypnos exerts his charm
And I could not see
That it was all an illusion...
There in the middle of solace
Is despair...
There where Cassandra stands
Is a mirage of miraculous love
Dissolving in the treachery
Of fading images
And forged hopes.
The present,
So palpable,
Vanishes like wisps of smoke
In my embrace

VIII. TEMPTATION (Europe/Tibet)

"Come away, Aeneas.
To the top of the mountain
Where the world can be yours
If only you will renounce Cassandra
And give up your quest.
Here in this monastery
You can redeem the grandeur
That was yours
And be remembered
For the greatness you have achieved.
Return with me to the Underworld
Where your true admirers abide...
Forget Rome...
Forget the world...
True glory is in the shadows
Of Fallen Heroes.
There is nothing left for you...
You have created empires...
You are the secret of the gods...
But Rome is dead and dying,
While your greatness grows"

Pausing in the glory of the Tempter's words...
I relish the moment...
Unaware that such grandeur
Is the vanity of vanishing worlds
That never were.

IX. DENIAL (Australia)

What have I done?
I cannot go to Rome...
I perish...
Because I never knew
Who and what I was...
Betraying Cassandra,
I am not worthy
Of the journey
Now required.
I am adrift in a wilderness
The Outback of the world
Where oddities define me
In singular forms
Lost in the vast anonymity
Of a world in seclusion...
Eons flowing unnoticed
Produce eccentric experiments
Undisturbed and unperturbed.
In the midst of such diversity
I am faceless and undefined.

X. EVOLUTION (India)

Changing, evolving...
I am the formula
Of centuries past...
The accumulation of every moment
Perceived iniquities
Dissolve in the onslaught
Of a vibrating flux...
An ethos of the universe
On an immense expedition...
We mirror the journey
In countless microcosms
Each generation a footstep,
A refinement adapting
To the demands of Now
Hurtling toward some destiny
Some explanation
Always elusively inscrutable.
We never rest
From the adventure
Of becoming more
Than we had dreamed could be.

XI. DESTINY (Oceans and Space)

To regions not yet known
Penetrating where
We were not meant to go...
Our quest is mapping
What we do not know.
Each day, an expansion
Of Space and Time,
Carves reality
From an infinite illusion.
Peering out
To the edge of Time itself
To remote, unexplored,
And unmapped regions,
We see the reflection
Of ourselves
Waiting to be discovered.

XII. ROME

Welcome, Aeneas!
The centuries echo
Your presence,
And your return
Restores an antique luster.

Listen, Aeneas,
To the inner pulse
That defines your soul
To the catalytic clamor
Of genetic formula
Deciphered by descendants.

A timeless love
Mapped your quest...
Cassandra stands revealed,
Inspiring you
Beyond imitations
Of the past.

The Present demands
Perpetual definition
As moments slip from nowhere
Into oblivion
Leaving us
The intensity
Of existence dissolving
Leaving coded imprints
To be solved forever.

Rome, ancient and ageless,
Resonates like cosmic bells
Tolling miracles yet to come.