My hope, my love, my all too clear regrets
That burned like ice against uncovered feet
Or summer rain upon a ghettoed street
Which wounds the gazing soul like bayonets:
Have all deserted now, and absent, seem
A story from a dust-shelved book which told
Of night, and light, and all that life can hold
When faithful still to its first-tasted dream.
To take that place there's nothing but a numb
Remembrance of before; a Christmas wreath
That stands for things—like what I have become—
No longer clear. And all alone the breath
Of fire smolders late: may yet succumb
To fate—or serenade fair Circe for death.
—jim sloman, december 2, 1964
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