About a year after meeting with TS in the Gold House as Governor of the Hills of Hope, Hope sits alone at night in her study. The study is warm; its shelves lined with worn books. Soft lamplight pools across a simple wooden table, and the windows stand open to the Hills, letting in air that carries the sound of wind through leaves. The room invites the eyes outward, not inward as there is no mirror. 

Hope surveys the stack of papers and packages on her desk needing her attention. She spots a padded envelop, smiles, and says to herself:

his book has arrived

bodhi’s masterpiece

tonight i will find the time

to read it here in peace

Hope also finds an envelope marked URGENT from the Lord of the Ridge. Nervously she opens to read the Morality Proclamation: 

hear now this call
to all the mountain’s north
a time of trial is upon us
and we must answer forth

our nation stands in peril

from lands we cannot trust

an enemy among us

now rises from the dust 

the stranger walks within us
yet claims no common name
their creed is not our own
their presence breeds the flame

our morals have been weakened
by voices gone astray
that call disorder freedom
and lead our youth away

so i must seal our borders
and call our people home
no foreign hand shall guide us
within the lands we own

this mountain shall be moral

its purpose now made clear
and near the weeping willow
god’s mind will soon appear

Hope sets down TS’s proclamation stunned. In a daze, she opens the padded envelop and pages through Bodhi’s book. Hope stops in the Woods of Wisdom at a small jailhouse where iron rods surround an old sheep, wearing a coarse monastic cassock, and a gentle lamb. Hope stops, puzzled and asks: 

only the old sheep saw

the lion and the yak

the dragon entered later

and widened the crack

Hope drops the book and adds:

but this is about bodhi

at the small jailhouse scene

how could he have written 

what was in ts’s dream

and he mentions zarathustra 

still living by the lake

in a cabin near the cave 

recovering from his quake

She calls her assistant and says:

call bodhi at once

my friend from school

not sure what world is turning

nor if the dream holds his rule

Bodhi arrives the next day at the Governor’s study and Hope’s assistant brings him into the room. A copy of his book rests on a side table next to the couch. Before they can even sit on the couch, Hope grabs Bodhi by the arm and says: 

what you have written

this story that you cast

from where did this vision come

what source shaped its past

Bodhi responds:

i had a vision

sitting under a tree

of a mountain not divided

by what people think they see 

from where it came

i do not know

but learned its path

along the river’s flow

Hope answers:

i ask because 

the new lord of power
speaks of that same prison
and of a fateful hour

he claims himself the dragon
the judge of what must be
he also speaks of others 

a lion and yak to see

yet your story is clear
who stood with the sword
the dragon saw not the others
so ts is not revelation’s lord

Bodhi sits back and responds, stunned:

then something does not hold

if what you say is true

what does the dream reveal
and what are we to do

Hope concludes with urgency: 

gather each copy of your book

so its existence is not known
and take one to the hermit zar
at the lake where he lives alone

return to me after you do

before it is too late
the ancient cavern waits below
where root and truth both wait

Over the next few days, Bodhi retrieves the copies of his book, offering an excuse of revision and error. Then one early morning, over coffee on the back porch, Bodhi says to his wife:

my dear i must go

to help if i can

something is unfolding

that i don’t understand 

Bodhi’s wife sits in silence as a tear gathers in her eye. Bodhi lowers his head, sets off to find Zarathustra’s cave.