| 2012 |
2012
No alarm should come to you by fire, beacon, or signal.
You who are far from your homes will never see your homes.
I saw holy men and righteous burning. Tapers in a blackened sky.
And if scared men turn their necks once having second thoughts,
no beacon reaches them on a rough and churning, charcoal sea.
Some, I know, sought knowledge and judgment first,
but the promise made to you is void-of works, riches, honor.
Nothing you have gained can be kept, nothing you have loosed
shall remain loose; nothing bound on earth, shall stay bound;
and no signal shall reach you from a further shore.
The cunning of books and lamps failed man and priest.
No charts for propitious hours, no lists of fortunate years,
no Egyptian Days can forewarn you the going-out,
and the coming-in. And though the sea is charcoal black,
no light, no fire set upon a hill, shall reach you.
Nothing I spend now will come back to me ten-fold;
when there was an hour for kindness, I was not
kind; when love was begged of me, I did not love.
Mouths stretched and dried on pepper stalks, my neck
will turn, human for homeward glances;
and though the sea is charcoal black, no beacon will reach me,
no signal sent out from shore,
no fire upon a gentle hill.
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