Greys, Part Iii
Greys, Part III
Temerity, the crux of the Human Way -
We dominate what we can,
Deride the rest -
But the heart speaks in terms the tongue cannot frame,
Suggesting the worst is a part of our best
The ashen taste behind the use of insignificant powers
Tempers our pride in the midst of triumphant hours.
Beneath the greening of the summerwarmed Earth
Corruption proceeds in its slow work
Feeding the living on the fruits of its breakage
Of the form and substance of the dead.
The cold rain slanting down from leaden clouds
Softens and enlivens roots deep in the loam,
The desiccated pulp of yesterday's life
Many voices speak
In the pattering tears of the sky:
Many voices, not understood by the educated mind,
Not grasped by refined understandings:
Heard, interpreted in the dark chambers
At the center of the soul,
Where the meanings of things old as this world
Quietly abide,
Resting in the silent center -
The fertile graveyard of our primal thoughts.
The rain calls to us through its wall of grey
Addressing our Pride
Mixing truths forgotten with truths regained
The rain speaks, saying, among other things -
What are the monuments of Men
The works of their timid day?
The mountains that this Earth brought forth
In fevered fury, long ages ago
Have long outlasted the whole of your race.
These are Her monuments, and yet
For all their strength and glory,
I -
The humble soft rain,
I -
Have washed away whole chains of them;
For I persist,
Returning and returning,
Ages but moments to me.
We can watch our glories dissolve
Stone upon stone, great edifices rise
To crumble and fall again
Forgotten and fractured, always being replaced
By other stones upon stones
Which will decay in their due turn.
Impermanence is the standard
Of human affairs
The common complaint in which everyone shares
Consider with me those things that do last,
Thoughts and emotions which fade not with the past.
Copyright © William Masonis | Year Posted 2018
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