05-01-2013, 09:34 AM
The Stars Are Not Silent
I unfold the papers like a map,
and let the newsprint bleed
beneath my fingers.
The oracles have retreated
into ancient twilight. No longer
to speak. Fate is a hound that stalks
in mute approach. The fox caught
between teeth before the horn is blown.
I read that I may
love a woman.
Who will be my mother.
Who is now I widow
for I will kill a vagrant;
who was my father.
It has been done before.
It will be done again.
We cannot untrace.
There is no escape
from the tyranny of birth.
I unfold the papers like a map,
and let the newsprint bleed
beneath my fingers.
The oracles have retreated
into ancient twilight. No longer
to speak. Fate is a hound that stalks
in mute approach. The fox caught
between teeth before the horn is blown.
I read that I may
love a woman.
Who will be my mother.
Who is now I widow
for I will kill a vagrant;
who was my father.
It has been done before.
It will be done again.
We cannot untrace.
There is no escape
from the tyranny of birth.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson