Instead, dig deep
And stay away from alarm clocks.
On love, on grief, on every human thing,
Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing.
Walter Savage Landor
Dr. William T.G. Morton, who first publicly demonstrated the use of ether as an anesthetic, called his ether «Letheon»
River Lethe,
Your name
Flows from the distant myth,
Stealthily seeps
Into the language
Of the here and now,
Glimmers
In the shadowy words:
Letheon, lethal, lethargic.
Your luminous waters
Wash away
All loss,
All longing.
Your silver whirlpools
Sweep away
All burdens,
All bonds.
It is not yet my time.
I walk on solid ground,
Though my feet
Sense the soft path
Sloping down to your shore.
I do not quench my thirst,
Though I know the taste
Of each syllable
Of your name.
River Lethe,
River Lethe,
River Lethe.
After the end. Lamentation
I love this child of mine
Like no other.
I remember
This one rising,
Striving, passing
Like no other.
My wounds still fester,
I still burn with fever,
Convulse and shudder
With the aftershocks.
I am still haunted
By the bitter end
To all the building,
Worshipping, contending,
To all the restless seeking…
The bitter, self-inflicted end.
This child of mine
Was not content
To live day after day,
To let the seasons
Revolve without change,
To let each generation
Pass through life
From start to finish.
This child strove
To subdue the flow of time,
To master life,
To conquer death,
To slip out of my embrace.
To this child any bond
Was bondage.
But still I love,
Remember,
Long for
This one child of mine
Who was like no other.
I keep the imprints
Of the footsteps
Pressed into my clay,
The bones fused with my stone.
The soaring, crumbling towers
Reach for the sky.
The rusting bridges
Sway across the chasms.
The words still sing:
Praise,
Lamentation,
Knowledge,
Love,
Despair…
The words still sing,
Though there is no longer
A voice to give them sound,
An ear to hear and comprehend.
The words still sing
On the singed, moldering pages,
Even as all that was created
By this child,
My child,
The human,
Returns to dust.
This pine tree does not end
At the tips of its needles.
Its shade soothes wilted grass.
Its seeds feed a squirrel
And a family of grosbeaks.
Its progeny can be found
As far as the next ridge.
Its sap sticks to my fingers,
Holding my words together.
Silent waters are swiftly rising,
Engulfing dead leaves and last year’s grasses,
Deepening
Under the rippling lace
Of the inverted bare trees,
Darkening under the bright reflections
Of white clouds in the April sky.
