An Ode

If I could claim a place and time ideal

And walk on its shores in the sunset, for there would still be those

It would be a place and time of song

Everyday a festival

Each with a unique ode

Not old and grey and stone, but as a river and its bank

Flowing, gently twisting from mouth to mouth

So that all us choral apes hear every other

So that none is silent, and none is deaf

And on some equinox or solsteice or another

We would kneel at every grave

And speak of all the world:

"Sing to the one whose died a child

For whome incense burned will tinge the temple wall

For whome a ship would come forth by day

For whome a silver sliver rests beneath the tongue

For whome a raft of gold comes to be squandered in flame

For whome a dance breaks out, and is regretted

For whome a casket waits in molding loam beneath a cyprus

For whome your tears are fuel for fungus

For whome carbon and the rest will part and be silent"

And now sang the millions on the cave wall, we will be silent

All in splendor and wealth and glory and sweat and time

Will be silent

Every painting

Every one

Will lose the voice, and be only a shadow cast

The casters die with the man, the man who died a child