Home >> Volume 7, Issue 01

Chapter

Thomas DeFreitas

Autumn's revision, brothers, must be bold,
Hatred forsaken, avarice cast aside.

November is austerity's beginning,
Slaying of blisses, end of blithest dream.

All vex and blither, language that explores
Our grandest griefs, pretending to explain.

Transcribe belle mort, bête noire, invidium:
Our psalmody make plain, our lives make pure.

All words have meaning. Nature's fleeting words
In season, out of season, sermonize:

The Preacher's chasing after wind, Job's woes,
Bitterest balm of perishing and birth.

But have we eyes to see or ears to hear
The messages, the proofs, the pictures plain?

Truth of a time, of every sæculum,
Impinging on the sacred-sordid globe,

Invading groves of plastic, lakes of glass,
To change the page, alter the chronicle

Of hearts and spirits, merrily sad, all souls
Briskly evading their terrible greatest need.