Sacred now this barren land,
These silent elms and, cold as steel,
This rain: what have you touched that is not golden,
Limned with memories and airy dust?
Yet silence-- the silence, perhaps, of angels--
Clings to it all, and cold as Roman marble
It crumbles. And I with it.
There was a time, I would like to tell you,
When this graceful temple went untouched,
And by you especially: you were yet to come,
Who poisoned the wells and colored the sky,
Who killed all of life, who took its place.
Stirring in the air of Sunday morning,
You descended and seized what was not yours.
And how do I explain? How do I tell you
That I do not begrudge you your cruel gains?
These visions of you neither kill nor create:
When I awake, it will all be the same.
for some odd reason, i scanned the original handwritten manuscript of this poem. wanna see?
