III. Works and Days

As rubble forms                its rough cartography of our fall

but tells little or nothing                       of much but beauty.

As such rubble is nothing               but symptoms or sultry

reminders we’re flesh                       that we ache above all.

As we have little                but the sultry gestures of lovers;

our outlines pressed                           into patches of grass.

As the little we have                 must be shared with others

or rationed                                     or sterilised by the glass.

As Hesiod said                                 to the girls from Pieria

we’re haply destined                        to love our destruction.

As faith is the condition                             by which we sin

so I think of you                                 I wish you were here.

from Confer (Bloodaxe, 2011), Ahren Warner 2011, used by permission of the author and the publisher

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