The Second Sound Poem by Eric Micha'el Leventhal

For as long as anyone could remember,
there had been a legend among the people,
telling of a group of immortal warriors
who lived in a forbidden temple
far from the great city.

One day in the life of men,
a group of the city's most powerful warriors
decided they could no longer bear the shame of knowing
that there existed warriors more fearless than they.
They decided they would challenge these immortal warriors
and become themselves the gods of their people.

So they journeyed to the place of the temple
and gathered round its massive stone walls,
but try as they might,
they could find no entrance.

They pressed their ears to the walls,
but no sound could be heard from within.
They whooped and shouted and made their war cries,
but only silence came to greet them.

Finally their leader, a great sage,
realized and announced to the proud warriors
that the only method of entry,
the only way any one of them could gain access to the temple,
would be to transform himself
into one of the immortals.

And so the warriors relented and huddled outside the temple walls.
They journeyed within themselves and encountered the powers who sleep in shadow.
They mastered their fear
and, in so doing, raised themselves to the level of the immortals.

At that moment they heard the first sound:
The massive stone walls slid apart to permit their entry.
Eager to encounter and defeat their immortal foes,
they rushed into the temple.

And though they searched everywhere within,
no war cries came but their own;
and the only warriors they found were each other.
And that is when they heard the second sound...
of the massive stone walls sliding back together around them.

And for as long as anyone can remember,
there is a legend among the people,
telling of a group of immortal warriors
who live in a forbidden temple
far from the great city.