The holdout, the preservative father, the stakes at boundary line––the warning to culture: “this far and no further”––these are the guideposts of wisdom, and wisdom’s limit; bound to be transgressed, painted the inviting orange of temptation to the unwise seers of fruit across the plain, the believers in future’s cyclical promise, its gain, its down-going. We speak the word––culture––with only honey, but when did honey not lead our bear astray, make him fat in seeking the short sweetness, when did it not rot and round his sharp teeth? And what of generations of roundtoothiness? Do they not rot too? Wisdom for fools! And father seeks, too, to remember his lessons; the oldest of which, that each old bear seems to miss: we must transgress the father’s boundary to learn. We cannot see for ourselves, and know like he knows without the slow driving of that boundary stake through his heart, without killing the sacred with the profane. It is in our profanity that we become the sad father, the warning to generations. A species who kills itself for life’s sake.