Michael S. Collins – Ⅰ
Augury
Like spades, sharp years dig up the future:
Above the graveclothes, skin tears away
from face. One sees death’s cliché
grin-grimace, which looses not a spoor
of things to come: The ultimate game face….
You can’t tell if life is winning or losing,
or if death is bad as they say, or peace
can live in flesh. Does heaven have a memory?
Does fortune lead us by the nose into hell?
Did the sun create us all by accident, without skill
or one mistake, with mere mass and mindless fire?
Sweet ignorance knows our keeper, transience,
is the real Rosetta stone, and we humans are made by error,
Lord of the garden, who sheathes his sword in fire.
Like spades, sharp years dig up the future:
Above the graveclothes, skin tears away
from face. One sees death’s cliché
grin-grimace, which looses not a spoor
of things to come: The ultimate game face….
You can’t tell if life is winning or losing,
or if death is bad as they say, or peace
can live in flesh. Does heaven have a memory?
Does fortune lead us by the nose into hell?
Did the sun create us all by accident, without skill
or one mistake, with mere mass and mindless fire?
Sweet ignorance knows our keeper, transience,
is the real Rosetta stone, and we humans are made by error,
Lord of the garden, who sheathes his sword in fire.