LAMENTATIONS 

The time is a face that ages, then suddenly regains its youth and speaks languages it never knew before. The time marches through the poet with heavy, mud-soaked boots.

A shield drops between him and the steady activity of the normal day. Protected, the poet asks, "how much beauty and truth does this time contain? What excellent things are being done for a better future?" He asks more personal questions: "What do I use to put the instruments into my imagination?"

"Is the imagination equipped to suck in the full universe and, then, operate as though it knows nothing?"

The time is a pessimistic young woman whose spirit hangs ragged on the edge of a ripe knowing.

"Simplicity! They misconstrue your deliberate symbol! You rise from the worlds' fat and sour resistance. Simplicity says, move the many to the few. Simplicity says that when a structure believes it is eternal, it is about to collapse. Simplicity says that all things begin and end in dream; gird, then, for the meanwhile between."

Simplicity = the calculation that puts the sun at the center of the solar system.

Simplicity says that the deeds that need to get done will get done.

Simplicity is the child's delight at eternal questions.

Simplicity sets the poet loose in the unconquerable world.

The form of a splendid, uneasy peace enters the poet. It's as if prayers have been answered but now the job is to find the God that has given him grace.

© 2001 David Eide. All rights reserved.