honey and sting

One day House looks at Foreman and sees
a Crusader. In fairness perhaps some substance is involved,
or one of the random flukes of House's mind.
Nevertheless he catches a vision of the man, horsed,
not in shining armor but in something more dented and deranged,
as if the long road there and back again was almost more
than he could bear. Crusades, after all, are all about war,
and never mind the holy spin, resolve to something stale and dank.
A slave trade, a land grab, a jihad, by any other name.
House sees the pain and rage in Foreman's brow,
his shoulders weighted with the burden of false hope,
but something else as well -- though weary to the bone,
bedraggled by the disillusioned road --
he also sees, unsullied beneath the sneer,
Foreman's dream.