Stone Poem by Howard Nemerov

[abknight@zzzzzz]

For your delectation:

GUIDE TO THE RUINS

One lives by commerce, said the guide.
One sells the available thing, time
And again: the ruins, the temple grove,
the gods with their noses knocked off.
One profits by the view.

It is a difficult trade, he said,
To give to the dishonored dead
Their stature and their stony eyes.
The vulgar paint has flaked away
Leaving the color of time,

The unimpassioned grey which is
Not now in commodious demand.
One gives, with broken Herakles,
A premium of legend, a pamphlet
To certify the chill.

What is it that one sells, the self?
I think not.  One sells always time
Dissembled in heroic stone: such eyes
As look like cloud-reflecting lakes
In the old mountains of time.

Howard Nemerov

New or old, a good carving is always a bundle of time!  Do
you think?

Bill