ELUSIVE AS THOUGHT

OR THE CHANGES OF MEMORY.’

SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS.

And he vanished in histories

of rumor and smoke,

and sooner or later,

a bard will sing this,

in beleaguered castles

abandoned to night

and the cough of the raven.

Sooner or later,

someone will sing

of Orestes the bard,

for some things the poet

brings forth and fashions,

and others the poet holds back:

for words and the silence

between them commingle,

defining each other

in spaces of holiness.

and through them the story

ascends and spirals,

descends on itself

and circles through time

through effacing event

and continuing vengeance

down to the time

I am telling and telling you this.

MARK OF THE FLAME,