Sonnet LXXXVII: Audacity

In its demesne the rolling Shinto bell,
your brightest laugh that spikes the screen, the spine
of a dimetrodon, is a design
that's locked in a genetic, verdant cell;
each inhalation's perfect, tapered swell
spreads visible along with its decline--
this tiny, living thing that is not mine,
creating body from a dust-made shell.

I could erase it, cover it with sound,
could amplify, repeat to match my mood,
accompany its tones with tinny psalms.
For all I cannot touch, my hands surround
its boundaries; I hold it here, subdued
in incorporeal yet heated palms.

Sonnet LXXXVI

I captured Senex, and I stabbed his heart;
I drove my kitchen knife into his chest.
He isn't dead, but I don't care: the rest
of Regnum Animæ will come apart;
it now belongs to me and by my art
will grow again. And Senex who distressed
Amatus and Licentia is pressed
and pinned to Earth, imprisoned at the start.

Puer Æternus, come at once to me:
put careless feet where I say you must stand.
I want to kiss you where the man can see
and paint his blood upon you with my hand,
to smear it on your cheeks, to show I'm free
to own, to take, to cherish, to command.

Sonnet LXXXV

Anteros answered me:
he poured his weight upon the scales that Aphrodite holds,
and I am rising up;
the world unfolds beneath my long trajectory,
my straight approach to orbit, almost,
to create an arc, horizon-passing;
and the golds that streak the sky are weightless metals,
molds that form my path,
that buoy and elate.

But her he slammed into the iron Earth,
and heavier than osmium she falls,
still lustrous, always lustrous,
but too hard and brittle, useless,
stripped of any worth for molder, forger, god or woman;
crawls in filth
--yet is too precious to discard.

Sonnet LXXXII: Shigemori

If subject turns on lord to fight,
my ties to others are no guide;
when right and wrong stand side by side,
I cannot choose but to do right.
The debt I owe my sovereign's might
is more profound than fabric dyed
deep red, than twice-dyed red, more wide
than piles of gems, ten thousand, bright.
No course is open for me now;
no choice is possible to make,
for all the loyalty I feel.
It now seems best to me to bow
and simply to request you take
my head, O Father, where I kneel.

Sonnet LXXXI

Would I exist no more if courage came
and I tore all the muscles from my face?
If cheek to cheek I cut, would it erase
my thoughts, unsay my words, unmake my name?
If I could dig each eye out of its frame
or yank each of my hairs out of its place,
would all that is me leave and leave no trace?
Would I no longer need to feel my shame?
If I could slit my belly, setting free
the sins that press me, turning inside out,
exposing everything that built and bred
to cleansing light, where everyone can see,
would they evaporate--the guilt, the doubt--
and leave no part of me, alive or dead?

Sonnet LXXVII: 先輩 [To my older classmate]

With a practical illusion walking
next to me, I have no need to carry
all reality along; the airy
pillars of the mind bear up with shocking
carelessness our candied tastes, and talking
soon becomes the object. Is it scary
how I bounce along without a wary
thought to spare for danger, scornful, mocking?
Maybe, but I think that's why it beckons:
freedom in this case is somehow safer.
My intense attention feeds this union
(so my prideful glance, uncertain, reckons):
cherishing the wine cup and the wafer
of platonic bonds, I keep communion.

Sonnet Cycle: Nanshoku ōkagami

I. The ABCs of Wakashudō

Asking whether it is painful,
you put your trusting hand in mine.

Something small like this?
Disdainful of pain,
I keep our pact divine.

We are wings that share a feather,
two trees grafted tight together;
thus,
we are always side by side,
a set that no one could divide.

All will worship us who hear us together,
playing on our flutes;
Atsumori himself salutes our skill.

Who can choose when near us between us?
Who would rid his rooms of autumn leaves or springtime blooms?

II. Within the Fence: Pine, Maple, and a Willow Waist

Truly,
life is like the lightning that strikes in daylight,
deft and fleet,
and I dare not face what's frightening:
the wait until next time we meet.

Violating all conventions,
you bestowed your kind attentions.
I'm lost in this confusing mood,
and I pour forth my gratitude.

All your acts amid my illness made me believe you were in love
(unworthy as I am thereof),
and if in the evening stillness,
you whisper that these things are true,
please let me give myself to you.

III. Love Letter Sent in a Sea Bass

The vow I gave was an eternal vow,
so should our lord himself desire me,
ought I surrender?
No!
For then and now my very self is not my property.

Since from the start,
when I first loved and said,
“This body will no longer be my own,”
I understood that we would both be dead
the minute our obsession became known.

I'm deeply hurt that you should hesitate to die beside me,
even at my whim—
but if it's been decided as my fate,
of course I will succeed in killing him.
And after that,
I'll turn that very blade on you,
Gonkurō,
who betrayed.

IV. Implicated by His Diamond Crest

Daiemon on the river's bank was naked in the shadow of the reeds;
he entered in the river,
and he sank.
Though it is deep,
desire for love exceeds.

Tannosuke's garden must convey that he was crying uncontrollably—
oh, even for a dream that would not stay,
that was too sad to bear,
too hard to see.

Tannosuke pressed the dripping chest of Daiemon to him in relief
and took him in to whisper and to rest;
Daiemon soon forgot his grief.
When morning brings its treasonous routines,
at least we meet again in nightmare scenes.

V. A Sword His Only Memento

Birds left the sky for me when I exclaimed;
if I disliked a man, there was no need for me to speak to him;
if I proclaimed a crow a heron, everyone agreed.

When I had gone to sleep in disarray,
he slipped a pillow underneath my head,
and if my coverlet had slid away,
he covered me with blankets from his bed.
His kind attentions came to me in sleep,
reality impinging on a dream.

We swore our faithfulness,
a pledge I keep like still-green pine,
a pledge of my esteem.

These privileges were born from his embrace,
the consequence of his indulgent grace.

VI. Though Bearing an Umbrella, He was Rained Upon
Korin 1

Korin's answer did not show him the gratitude one might expect of a boy
(so far below him)
granted favor and respect.

“Forcing me to yield to power is not love.
I will not cower;
my heart is mine,
and if one day someone should come to me
and say loving words in true reflection,
I'd welcome him inside my room.
I want to love someone on whom I can lavish real affection—
and if your love were something real,
I'd know it in the way I feel.”

VII. Though Bearing an Umbrella, He was Rained Upon
Korin 2

Cut off my strong right arm;
cut off my left—
but I will never say for you his name.
You'll never have it on your lips to shame me with your lips again,
to shame by theft my lips,
to shame my fingers with your deft, unyielding fingers
and your blunted aim.

I warned you at the start,
and so the blame will rest on you when I'm reborn and you're bereft.

These hands are hands that touched;
these arms are arms that held;
this mouth has kissed—
so chop me up and show them that they must obey you, too.

Remember you have stolen from my charms;
remember you were drinking from my cup,
and know that I did not belong to you.

VIII. His Head Shaved on the Path of Dreams
Sanai

A copy of the temple garden at Shōun-ji in Sakai was to be constructed,
and I often sat and watched the workers set the scene abuzz.
Thus,
on the evening when the Sago palms were planted,
I was perched upon a rock.
I cupped some water from the spring,
like alms within my hands,
to drink before my walk.
I threw the extra water on the ground behind me,
not perceiving anyone was standing there,
but then I heard the sound of laughter,
and a soft, low voice made fun:
“Ah—
one day I was hoping to be rained upon by you,”
he merrily explained.

IX. His Head Shaved on the Path of Dreams
Kan'emon

This afternoon,
when we were on the road,
I carried you.
You seemed to me too small to walk alone,
too beautiful to crawl along the earth—
much better if you flowed like clouds across this floating world.
I showed my inner self to you and laughed to call myself your slave.
You,
with your soldier doll,
pretended duels,
pouncing when I slowed.

Tonight,
when we were in my room and flames lit up your face,
we cuddled side by side;
I carried you;
I watched your clothing swish;
I called you General—
these were just games,
but knowing of the skill with which you ride,
I'll gladly call you anything you wish.

X. Grudge Provoked by a Sedge Hat
Seihachi

If everyone perceives the way I feel,
the ways I show you favor,
I don't mind,
because I feel the world must not stay blind to sunlight
and your innocent appeal.

If everyone sees through the way I kneel beside you,
I don't mind;
I make this kind of gesture to untie the cares
that wind around your ankles,
pulling you to heel.

And if you know I love you,
I don't care—
unless it brings you sadness or distress;
so if you wouldn't like to understand,
please think of what I do as nothing,
air that drifts and doesn't muss your hair or press too hard against you,
tugging at your hand.

XI. Grudge Provoked by a Sedge Hat
Rammaru

A spiteful word was spoken out of turn,
and he whirled 'round with fury in his eyes,
the set of his too-yielding lips unwise as passion,
firm as thunder,
quick to learn the promise of vendetta,
quick to spurn in pure disgust the man who mocked his cries,
and cold with indignation at the lies he told in company without concern.

He doomed himself who spoke those words.
This boy did not take insults lightly;
whispers of his many lovers would not be begun.
Though men by hundreds used him as their toy,
his virtue lived,
and while he may make love to thousands of them,
he loved only one.

XII. The Sickbed No Medicine Could Cure

“Friend of memory,
your condition is poor,
and this is bound to show;
if you're in a bad position,
don't let me be the last to know.
Are you shamed to love another since you loved me first?
No other fulfillment of my vow is there than pleasing you;
let me declare all your love to him.
I'll handle it all exactly how you'd like.”

Samanosuke forged the spike that Uneme used for scandal;
he left when Uneme had gone and said that he could not go on.

XIII. He Fell in Love When the Mountain Rose Was in Bloom

Directly to the castle of his lord
at daybreak Shume took the scroll and went.
“A man has fallen deep in love and spent his life in longing,
and he was ignored.
My honor tells me that I must reward his adoration,
but if I relent,
I leave my gentle lord without consent.
I cannot choose;
please kill me with your sword.”
Shume produced the scroll;
the lord received it from his hand.
To read its pages took an hour.
The lord considered Shume's whim and asked the boy to wait.
“Don't be deceived,”
said Shume;
“If I go home now,
one look and I will act improperly with him.”

XIV. Tears in a Paper Shop

One of the heartless dandies
saw the sprig of cherries in Hatsudayū's hand.
“Give me those blooms!”
He swaggered,
cruel and big.

A handsome stranger heard this rude demand.
“Please let me settle this,” in soothing tones he said.
“Give them to him,” he told the child,
then grabbed the bully's sleeve and,
hard as stones,
told him to give them back—
and dryly smiled.
“Some day when you are sober, visit me;
I'd like to set you straight.”

He gave the right address,
but Hatsudayū could see the dandy planned to start an unfair fight.
“I'll go,”
he swore,
“I'll stay on the alert—
I'll die before I see this man get hurt.”

XV. A Huge Wine Cup Overflowing with Love

Look:
your papa loved him madly,
beyond his means,
beyond his strength.

Some say purple shows up badly at night,
but even at this length,
it is lovelier than ever,
that wisteria,
the clever and handsome symbol on his crest.

Look:
isn't he the very best?

No one can predict the turning of worlds;
I thought the very least that I could do before he ceased breathing
was convey his burning
and beg a message of release to help my husband die in peace.

XVI. The Man Who Resented Another's Shouts

“You risked so much for my sake”—
a caress—
“It makes me very happy”—
and without a pause to change to ordinary dress,
he bound himself in love that did not doubt.

Sanzaburō gave himself away,
lost interest in his work,
scorned other men.
His lover sobbed and vowed,
but went astray,
and he would never hear from him again.

Through every day,
he yearned to hear his voice;
when nighttime stopped his ears,
he merely tried to live 'til dawn;
and then,
as if by choice,
as happens in this floating world,
he died like blossoms in hard rain and frozen dew
or moonlight veiled by cloud-mists from our view.

XVII. Fireflies Also Work Their Asses at Night
Iori & Handayū

The skill of Yoshida Iori and Fujimura Handayū is remarkable:
affectionate,
they quiz their patrons playfully;
without a strand of weakness,
they are pliant.

Soon unmanned,
Iori's patron frenzies in a fizz of words,
abandons on the pillow his life's fortune at those words and in that hand.

Handayū stays too cold and still,
not snuggling,
and makes the gentleman start wondering
what he's done wrong to raise this temper.
Then he whispers, with a thrill,
a single,
beautiful suggestion.

Can a man forget such skill in all his days?

XVIII. Fireflies Also Work Their Asses at Night
Handayū

I am like the firefly,
glowing—
but it shines only in the night.
Here I am 'til dawn.
Keep going and never rest at noon;
invite.
If you wish to rent or borrow,
I'll be on display tomorrow.

Thus,
only secretly,
he comes at night,
while I beat drunken drums,
to where I am entertaining,
releasing fireflies—
so I'm told.

People wondered whom the gold lights were meant to touch,
complaining of mystery.
But now I see that they were meant to glow for me.

XIX. An Onnagata's Tosa Diary

“Master Han'ya,”
he called out loudly,
“Loving you is brazen,
too outspoken,
but accept this proof I give you proudly of sincerity,
this modest token...”
Saying this,
he made as if to linger on the stage.
He pressed his hand securely to the floor and cut his little finger off
with five or six sword strokes,
demurely.

Han'ya said, calm and kind,
“Devotion is an honor to receive,
and later I will surely sweeten that emotion—
now, the stage's pull on me is greater.
So the play today is not diminished,
wait for me backstage until I've finished?”

XX. An Unworn Robe to Remember Him By

He did not really need to die, they said:
he killed himself with an inflated sense of honor.

When the grandiose events of New Year finished,
someone went ahead to say the play was starting,
but his bed was chaste fidelity,
and the expense of not playing the whore to malcontents
left Hayanojō without a thread.

His servant had no choice now but to tell the truth,
and he was frightened,
but the strings that held the boy broke softly.

Laughing low, he said,
“So promises of love won't sell.
Why is it in this floating world that things go
never as we wish that they would go?”

Sonnet LXXIII

Selling my possessions for a lentil--
why should I not go on riding, riding?
Why should I submit to life in hiding,
in my father's tent, content and gentle?
All that I inherit is a rental
I can never buy, and I am biding
time until my chance goes gliding, gliding
past my fingers, real and fundamental.

I will take it down, and we will wrestle;
I will be the master of the center,
she who owns, the muscle-maddened maven,
sleeping, pausing to bear down the pestle.
Any tent I fancy I will enter,
eating any meal in any haven.

Sonnet Cycle: Love

I.

One word I hate is “love”, because it has
so many meanings that it has become
completely meaningless, and thus, it’s as
inept and pointless as ourselves. It’s numb.
What’s told about it is so many lies:
they say it’s always lovely, always good,
or always something we should realize,
or always anything (or always should!).
I hesitate to rip apart the hopes
of simple folk; who knows? Perhaps their dreams
will really come to be, and all these tropes
will spring to life and chalk up all the screams.
I only know myself; I always find
that Love is often cruel, seldom kind.


II.

I believe that every person
desires the Good, that we are drawn
to perfection, some insertion
the soul absorbs (and then it’s gone).
Love’s the perfect recognition
of that Good in one position:
we followed Love and swore our hearts.
Then Love revealed itself in parts
and we knew it false: and whether
deliberate deception or
a simple emptiness of core,
we discover late the tether
is tied, and our attempts to please
just prove us mediocrities.


III.

A perfect one does not exist, and yet,
I can envision him: I take a horn
and take a horse and make a unicorn;
I make a griffin and a cherubet,
and those I owe my focus I forget.
They know me, but I leave them all forlorn,
and give them no approval and no scorn;
pay them no attention, am no threat—
for they are not Perfection. It is he
whom I pursue; I long to press my lips
against his cold and frightened skin just there.
I follow ever after him to see
if I can catch him, but he always slips—
I touch him, and he melts away to air.


IV.

Love is merely the desire
to fully, carefully possess.
Thus I see the Good entire
and hunger to consume the mess,
take it in myself, and make it
part of me. I swallow, take it
in an embrace; I button right
this goodness to me, close and tight.
But unluckily things perish
when they are burnt or smothered still
or eaten all at once at will,
leaving me, although I cherish
them and long to swim and drown
in fountains I cannot drink down.


V.

And Love, when—if—it comes, is everything.
It fills the mind with images and sounds,
the hands are busy with creation rounds,
and sleep’s no longer needed, fall or spring.
And Love’s the greatest motivating side;
it’s stronger in a contest than is Force,
it’s swifter than is Shame at nightfall’s source,
it’s sweeter when fatigue sets in than Pride.
We know, of course, Love’s power’s hard to sway;
to overcome it, one must stab one’s thrall
with ice one gathers from the frozen font—
then self-control and honor win the day—
but I hate Love because I never fall
in love with people I’m allowed to want.

Sonnet LXII

Hair is falling in my eyes in dashes
of unpolished tan and gold, and jaded
chocolate green looks through the curls created
by the wind, the sunshine, and its ashes.
I think dreamily of summer splashes,
winter snows that never were, the faded
tangles, round and pink and sweet and mated,
honey brown with flitting, sooty lashes.
Maybe no one else thinks love is summer:
warm and sleepy, sticky-mouthed and sunny,
and by nature instantaneous and strangled,
but, I think, you'll understand the mummer
in the masque can fall in love with honey
and her hair--a boy that's soft and mangled.

Sonnet LXI

Your given name is lovely on the page,
until a tangled mess of sticky curls,
its perfect imperfection spinning swirls,
goes tumbling through my vision. In the age
that you're away, I never seem to gauge
your picture accurately--it's like pearls
before my eyes--but words I cherish: twirls,
unbounded, tulip, flushing, brownest, sage.
Here, don't you want to sit with me and eat
new butter, cold-clean water, honeyed bread?
And don't you want to giggle in my ear?
So tell me that you want to stay, too sweet
Mignon, because if you attempt to spread
beyond me, I will choose to hold you here.

Sonnet Cycle: Eromenoi

I.

My wish for you is that you would permit
my hands and eyes to show you secret Earth,
that I might watch as you discover birth
is death and learn to take delight in it,
to know again through you the joy of wit,
to take again from learning subtle mirth.
I lead you now to virtue, and the worth
of it will grow in you as you are fit—

but such delights are only in a heart
untouched by any sin that stops a prayer,
and I will never do for any thus,
for what you give me when I play this part
holds much more worth than even twice our share
of pure Philosophia holds for us.


II.

In whatsoever guise you may appear—
a love-struck girl, a scholar, a tattoo,
or the petals, pink and red and clear,
of the magnolia—I long for you.

In whose-so-ever voice you might début—
the novelist’s, the archangel’s, the news’—
I hear but little else; all sounds accrue
your meaning. But forgive me; you suffuse.

As soon as I can grasp the thing you choose
to make your home, you slip away, and I
am left with heaps of pink and clear red bruise,
a silly boy, a stupid girl, all shy,

expecting I’ll uphold the vows I swore
to you in them. It’s you whom I adore.


III.

When I do a thing that’s moral,
I wonder why I do that deed.
Is it for the victor’s laurel,
a morsel thrown to my own creed?
Is it novelty? For kindness
is as new and cruel as blindness.
Or can it be that in my heart
there is an honest urge to start
doing godlike deeds? No, rather,
I think it must be childlike joy
in having weapons to deploy:
favorite rôles of heroes. Gather
and call me cold, for I love best
the faces that I manifest.


IV.

Let’s say a man is under such a curse
that he must feed on cherries or receive
a most horrific death—or even worse,
feel pain no kind of doctor can relieve.

And let’s say, too—if this we can conceive—
that there are only two small cherries grown
in all the wicked world. Now, I believe
he’ll eat them, flesh and stem and stone.

If there were only one thing left unknown,
one pure, new thing, I know that I’d consume
it whole. The hunger that I would postpone
does struggle to relent and to resume.

I swallow meats too quickly to condemn;
I never taste the merest scent of them.


V.

Knowledge makes one cease adoring,
for knowing well cuts high from low,
and the stain is past ignoring.
Yet love is the desire to know.
Touching something perfect only
will despoil it, yet the lonely
and sinful heart desires to touch;
it begs for nothing half so much.
Is this paradox too ugly,
too cruel and desperate a sport
for gods in heaven to support?
Yet the gods, who sit so smugly,
are victims of the supple bow
of Love and the Desire to Know.


VI.

Is it not right that we desire the Good?
Our souls, made incomplete, beg to be filled.
The Good is True is Beautiful and spilled
on Earth by God, and you, small angel, could
compete with Earth for beauty. If you would,
you might outshine all monuments we build.
And listen: I am true and iron-willed,
the truest you will ever understand.

Then let us blend like watercolor paints
that bleed upon the page—for every hue
is chromaticity of one lone shade—
and let your tutor’s otiose restraints
be thrown away; for all that he may do
will not cause Fortune to be disobeyed.

Sonnet LVIII: Super Lame

It's rare that I don't scold myself or preach:
I did that badly; that was wrong... I'm proud
to an extent that I can speak aloud
my failings anywhere my voice will reach,
but when those people--and I will not teach
you all their names--agree with me and cloud
my true confessing words before the crowd,
I'm angry to the point that brooks no speech.

I think that it's because I know they're glad
of opportunities to give offense;
they're waiting for the chance to hand me shame,
to tell me that I'm wrong or that I 'm bad.
To me, at least, such people make no sense.
They're just pathetic, and that's SUPER LAME.

Sonnet LV: Spelling Error

It is a single, small mistake, uncrowned
yet obvious; it doesn't seem so much
a hurried misprint as it does the clutch
of ignorance upon a lazy ground.
I fear the guilty do not fear the sound
of judgment over every subtle touch.
What shame to live in squalid lodgings such
that ignorance is shameless and renowned.

I feel no flush of ugly, self-smug pride
at seeing on another's roof this blight;
it brings to mind instead all of my own
uncharted, inmost shame, which has not died
though I have suffered lifetimes--as is right--
both in the public forums and alone.

Sonnet LI: On Love

A pool in the savanna, black and wet:
here the thirsty people stare in wonder.
Crocodiles wait calmly for our blunder,
the sharp mosquitoes buzz around and fret,
and unseen, tiny creatures dream they met
in our blood and tore our throats asunder.
Drink or not: in either case, the plunder
of living flesh is offered with regret.
But thirst torments the reason: will the sticks
pierce through us as we drink? The water, cool
and very bitter, is entrapped in eye,
esophagus, and stomach with the flicks
of feeble hand because there is no pool
that's clean enough, and either way, we die.

Sonnet XLIX

I walk out from the tunnel into lights,
through rubber airport gates, and toward the street.
My passport in my hand, I go to meet
a place I've never met, its sounds, its sights,
with nouns and gestures, adjectives and rites,
expecting where I live and what I eat
to be as new to me as Mars. My feet
go hurrying, continuing my flights.

But the first thing that assaults me, plastic
and superb, an English sign displaying,
"WELCOME TO _______!", is coarse and flirty.
Down the street, they're more enthusiastic:
COCA-COLA, POST, EXCHANGES, saying,
This is just like home, except it's dirty.

Sonnet XLVI

The scent of sandalwood, untraceable,
is here, then gone, then here again. I breathe;
it changes. Sometimes smells and tastes that wreathe
around me fool me; I can't know, can't pull
reality from them. Are others dull
to what I sense? That is, did gods bequeath
to me a gift? Or does confusion seethe
inside my brain, untended, random, null?
Should I believe my eyes, my nose, my ears?
Or do I trust my logic and my thought?
These questions are rhetorical, and so
I leave them with you with your childish fears
and skip away; it's stupid that we fought
for knowledge when we knew we could not know.

Sonnet XLII

If Ganymede and Hebe knelt before
my feet and begged for my protection just
a minute after I'd abused them, thrust
my rage upon them, burned them, printed sore
and bruise upon their bodies, I would pour
my mercy on them, moved by tender trust,
and pull them to myself against the dust
of danger 'til they came to me no more,
and if the mermaid princess followed me
across the stones, and if the monkey king
would wait five hundred years for me in chains,
I, like Titania, would loyally
protect the children other women bring
to Earth, consume them, multiply their pains.

Sonnet XLI

I don’t wear shoes because I want to feel
the bounty of the earth: the mud that forms
when rained upon by yester-evening’s storms,
the baby grass, the sticks that pierce my heel,
the bits of gravel on my soles that deal
incisions, concrete, thorny plants, and swarms
of ants: I celebrate all this; it warms
my skin; I hold it close to make it real.

And though my feet are dirty, sometimes bruised
and sometimes bleeding, I will not put on
my shoes. I will go forward, trying not
to be as careful as I want, transfused
with strength as I approach the denouement,
And try to not look down when I am caught.

Sonnet XXXVIII

It isn't too hard to become the king
of four or five or twenty thousand men;
I have the skill set to impress you when
I speak aloud or scream in pain or sing.
There is a place for everyone; we bring
all talents to be seen and shared and then
acknowledge each one, if the king has been
attentive or aware of anything.
There are too many people here, and none
can see or hear me, so I have no chance
of greatness, and my words will fade,
forgotten, while the deeds that I have done
will crumble, though my hands are torn and slants
of dusty light fall over what I've made.