16th September 2007from 'The Book of Life'The Book says I should value my friends –
anyone knows I do; and yet I am not named
myself among the blessed; and it does not concern.
All my reading is half-achieved, restless,
for I have been left full empty:
I glean what I can, I try to remember.
How long will that last, do you suppose?
I'm not likely to be the old man, now,
all the while bearing witness in the dullest way.
Keep a candle burning though no one comes:
our rituals are also empty of everything,
that is how we are pure.
God's voice is gone, but we still have thunder:
somehow, in time, we might be cooled
by the long wind, and not made more thirsty.
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