Began to quench his crying thirst –
“Who would credit all the woe
When the best becomes the worst?
My princess with a look,
With a fatal, final ‘No,’
Has turned to ashes in my mouth
This summer taste,
And fallen to a July drouth
Where none can sing
Our country life is now a waste.”
A starling with a broken wing
Said, “No matter what you say
Time will wash it all away.”
A
recent patient from his bed
Surveyed
the hospital with fear – “What if I should die tonight,
Who will care or shed a tear?
The pain that’s in my head
Like an active piece of light
Prompts the question that I put.”
His neighbour who
Had stirred the waters with his foot
Put off his death
And did as much as he could do.
He whispered through his failing breath,
“Say the worst that you can say,
Time will wash it all away.”
Heraclitus
strode the hill
Muttering
to an empty sky,“Life is what approaches fire,
To fall away is then to die.
The wolf which makes a kill
Let loose upon a byre
May dip its teeth within the blood,
But when the snows
Have turned the northern fields to mud
The frozen stream
Will sing beneath the ice, ‘Suppose,’
Become as distant as a dream.
After we have had our say
Time will wash it all away.”
A
watcher on the final night
Felt
solid earth beneath his shoe – “Cosmic Mother, ever stern,
Tell your creatures what’s to do.
Will this rocky height
On which we stand and learn
Survive the portents of the stars?
Our children cry,
More terrified than in the wars,
‘O let us live
That we might put our sadness by.’”
The dying sun exploded with:
“There is nothing you can say,
Time will wash it all away.”
====================
© August 1980