Often the solitary survivor, trouble in mind, finds
Himself required to remember what he can
Never retrieve and would never want to find.
Often alone, every first light of dawn,
I have had to speak my sorrows. There is no one
Living to whom I would dare to reveal clearly
My deepest thoughts. But stop me if you’ve read
This before. I’m speaking to you now from one
Thousand years plus a few long lifetimes more
Ago, the garbled voice of a long lost relative,
A language like that spoken in the red room,
Ne maeg werig mod wyrde withstondan
Ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman. Go ahead,
This time I’ll let you. Read it out loud. Feel it
Clotting like raw-churned butter in your mouth.
Swimmeth eft on weg. I will too, but not yet.
Walls stand ruined by the wind, but walls
Will likely be raised up again. I have lived
In an age a later age may sigh for, the age
Of the race of giants. Still here, everything is
Transitory, and all this earth will empty of us.
It’s well to watch, without weariness, the way
The ordinary night orders itself back in, the way
Even a day composed of pauses slips away.
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