For Mohamed Bzeek

The faithless mother and the futile nurse, 
The wizened infancy, the doll, the hearse – 
Oh for a voice to spurn, a mouth to curse. 

His fingers were a benediction on 
The twisted shadow of an end foregone:
A body growing towards oblivion; 

And somewhere stirred a thought, a dumb surmise, 
The blur of anger on occluded eyes: 
All this should be, but should be otherwise. 

An albatross ablaze in its apogee 
Through certain windows gazing at the sea 
Is but an outrage, an obscenity. 

But you should know there was a little mound, 
An evil and an angel in the ground, 
And by, a prayer these things could not confound. 

A manic in the stoa once declared 
That here and the hereafter when compared 
Are not so nice as men have always erred. 

I that am neither guardian nor sage 
Have pondered, with a shuddering like rage, 
The iron and the virtue of this age.

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