Once gaily painted
And awash in joyful
Rites and the blood
Giving warmth to the slumbering crowds

The wise man who is not wise
Sits and broods

And dreams of the hills of youth
The glowing gold of wind-dancing wheat
And the embracing shade of verdant oaks

And he knows that the memory
Is a falsehood
Born of the batterings of the present
Merely a chimera of what should have been

A balm for the litany of regrets
Left unerringly in his wake
Like in any other

And the anchorite dreams
He dreams a shaman carving blood unto

Darkened cavern ribs
Whilse shadows dance
To the ecstatic rythms
Of the Pacan.

He dreams of pages of gossamer and spider web
Whose words will not survive their altercation back to dust

And of words that moulder in
Mustered ranks
In endless volumes in endless Maesoleums
Whose foundations are the tide of the ocean

He dreams of deep rivers of tears
Of men as foolish as he
Who would spread their days
In the hopes of something more

As anchorites numberless and alone
Stare deep into the father sun
Whose death is but a promise

They cleanse their eyes
Wash time from their sight
With all else
And so become immortal