Elegiac Invention,
or Three Meditations

Lift me into oblivion so I shall understand
all things language cannot speak
translate my heart, moor my voice
in the harbor from which no ship has sailed

I have never been the free will of your daydreams
I am only a choice you once made
a feeling you once had
the end of everything as you knew it.

*

Father History keeps an office near the white roses
beyond the slate path where the faun was laid,
and all of life is written in chalk drawings

Do not fear the end of the world, he says,
for it has already happened
a few times while you were sleeping
and once more when you were awake
check your notebook — you’ll find it all there.

*

A rosy fingered dawn
Was what I saw
At the close of your life

There is no meaning, only purpose —
to observe, to know
and to pass that knowledge on
so there shall always be
a witness to the universe.

Wrapped in the cloth of history
with coins on your eyes
I wept for all I had not yet learned.

By J. C. Pucci