Poesy

of the day

Corporal’s Lament

The sleep that approaches, I know of it;

And I long to know now its deep fullness,

Never again to awake and find my-

Self upon that foreign field where so much

Was lost to slaughter, all of it for naught,

All of it lost to a slaughter so pure.

And the citizens there, Fate’s selection,

Dead now, to whom do they owe allegiance?

And where are the fruits of my labor for them?

On the shorelines of what shining river

Do I build a proper tomb to weather

This doleful forever of memories?

Oh soon for the end that is nothingness,

The nothingness that has no face, that does

Not weep, that cannot see, at rest, ever

To be Oblivion’s great golden shore,

Where silence is the only fleeting sound

When light and darkness meet and disappear.

There then shall I honor Eternity.

There then to know sleep, gentle, without dreams.

Dec. 2010