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On the Vanity of Protest when Substituted for Election Before we sleep again,
as last resort we shout into the night, and hear our bleak words fall (a
moment, hours, years?), their ominous, eternal
fall merely a sigh on the dead wind over the world’s edge. And afterwards are
neither stars nor tears. A boundary has been
passed, and beyond lies altered being too numb for words, too stunned for hope. The great ship, the sun
(perhaps, perhaps!), lies to sail that waited overlong for
us just past the rim of
sleep. We embark into an orange
glow, not blinded by the
nearer light, and no feet drag up this
golden ramp; we ship quickly, step to
the rail, look out (almost
indifferently) at the ancient alien dusk. Thin sailors, rattling
among the rale and sigh of lines, cast off the last ties
to the dream of earth. Bustle and clamor die
now into plumbless silence and great gulls wheel
about our receding light— brute scavengers, of
course, but their intricate
patterns of flight rise cryptic upon the
falling wind, no longer a heard sigh
upon the upturned face. Or upon hands chilling upon the sunship rail— chilled, reading that
ominous cipher of wings. Is this indeed the
day-weary sun, the light of all our days, or something else? A stranger star? And the ship, with no
shriek or creak of wood, departs the harbor we
had claimed we wanted to depart, sailing into uncharted
space and perpetual paralax
without stars— while unfed, hungry,
demanding,
in some primordial
tongue whatever brief cries the gullible spirit can
utter to the closing eye. As we, before we sleep, shout into this
goodnight and listen to words
falling, falling…. |
