Requiem for the Dead Centuries
Copyright 1999 Elizabeth T. Anderson
Driving Mr. Dedalus
Stephen, my hero, let me show you the states -
our highways, where horizon melts at sundown.
You want the opposite of paralysis?
Stephen, my hero, let me show you the states.
We will fall faintly out of self-absorption.
We will chase ourselves until we have no selves.
Stephen, my Hero, let me show you the states -
our highways, where horizon melts at sundown.
On to Section Five: Reaching the Promised Land, and What to Do Then
St. Ceceilia's Day, 2000
"When in the last and dreadful hour
the crumbling pageant shall devour,
the trumpet shall be heard on high,
the dead shall live, the living die,
and music will untune the sky."
-- John Dryden, Song for St. Ceceilia's Day
Down heaven up through earth of sky and dirt
the lips of our imagines Gods are pursed.
And we, as calm as angels on the wing
hear all and nothing, all at once we sigh
and look to our imagined Gods to sing
a song of seashell harmonies that rise
above the re-created ground we tread.
With ears of tin and feet of stone we still
are one, we all are none, we all have breath
with which to sing while harmony can kill.
And so that first and dreadful hour will come
when we decide how much we have been cursed
and look to our imagined Gods to bring
the instrument that will devour our birth.