The blind king neglects his garden,
forgets its healing waters, trembles
withered hands out of a shadowed gate.
Language of stone has neither
‘night’ nor ‘day’, but names
the celebrated death, underscores it
lightly with the place, and date.
The water may or may not stink,
though it sits neglected, unrippled by lightfall,
‘weilalas’ around dust’s newest plaything,
a buffeted grimegold crown.
And no one ventures down,
nor, therefore, round and up,
to pause and note the latest shifting breeze,
the gate’s smooth silence,
the bird that one remembers from
grandfather’s days, singing from rushes
at the water’s edge.
Rose and wheat beneath the same shadow,
the water within this stone basin,
within this neglected garden,
where there is no rest, and misery is mantle.
Stones for bread, to feed the deep water,
the bleached silver of the nets,
to fasten and to drown
all who the falling stars dismay.