Idumea work

idumea/content/ode.tex

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+
+\begin{verse}
+I am at a loss for images in this end of days:\\
+I have sight but cannot see.\\
+I build castles out of words;\\
+I cannot stop myself from speaking.\\
+I still have will and goals to attain,\\
+I still have wants and needs.\\
+And if I dream, is that not so?\\
+If I dream, am I no longer myself?\\
+If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?\\
+And I still dream even while awake.
+
+Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen\\
+for memory ends at the teeth of death.\\
+The living know that they will die,\\
+but the dead know nothing.\\
+Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:\\
+when you die, thus dies the name.\\
+To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,\\
+and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,\\
+and to become immortal is to repeat the past,\\
+which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.
+
+Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?\\
+To whom do I plead my case?\\
+From whence do I call out?\\
+What right have I?\\
+No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,\\
+No unknowable spaces echo my words.\\
+Before whom do I kneel, contrite?\\
+Behind whom do I await my judgment?\\
+Beside whom do I face death?\\
+And why wait I for an answer?
+
+Among those who create are those who forge:\\
+Moving ceaselessly from creation to creation.\\
+And those who remain are those who hone,\\
+Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.\\
+To forge is to end, and to own beginnings.\\
+To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.\\
+In this end of days, I must begin anew.\\
+In this end of days, I seek an end.\\
+In this end of days, I reach for new beginnings\\
+that I may find the middle path.
+
+Time is a finger pointing at itself\\
+that it might give the world orders.\\
+The world is an audience before a stage\\
+where it watches the slow hours progress.\\
+And we are the motes in the stage-lights,\\
+Beholden to the heat of the lamps.\\
+If I walk backward, time moves forward.\\
+If I walk forward, time rushes on.\\
+If I stand still, the world moves around me,\\
+and the only constant is change.
+
+Memory is a mirror of hammered silver:\\
+a weapon against the waking world.\\
+Dreams are the plate-glass atop memory:\\
+a clarifying agent that reflects the sun.\\
+The waking world fogs the view,\\
+and time makes prey of remembering.\\
+I remember sands beneath my feet.\\
+I remember the rattle of dry grass.\\
+I remember the names of all things,\\
+and forget them only when I wake.
+
+If I am to bathe in dreams,\\
+then I must be willing to submerge myself.\\
+If I am to submerge myself in memory,\\
+then I must be true to myself.\\
+If I am to always be true to myself,\\
+then I must in all ways be earnest.\\
+I must keep no veil between me and my words.\\
+I must set no stones between me and my actions.\\
+I must show no hesitation when speaking my name,\\
+for that is my only possession.
+
+The only time I know my true name is when I dream.\\
+The only time I dream is when need an answer.\\
+Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?\\
+Why ask questions when the answers will not help?\\
+To know one's true name is to know god.\\
+To know god is to answer unasked questions.\\
+Do I know god after the end waking?\\
+Do I know god when I do not remember myself?\\
+Do I know god when I dream?\\
+May then my name die with me.
+
+That which lives is forever praiseworthy,\\
+for they, knowing not, provide life in death.\\
+Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:\\
+serene; sustained and sustaining.\\
+Dear, also, the tree that was felled\\
+which offers heat and warmth in fire.\\
+What praise we give we give by consuming,\\
+what gifts we give we give in death,\\
+what lives we lead we lead in memory,\\
+and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
+
+May one day death itself not die?\\
+Should we rejoice in the end of endings?\\
+What is the correct thing to hope for?\\
+I do not know, I do not know.\\
+To pray for the end of endings\\
+is to pray for the end of memory.\\
+Should we forget the lives we lead?\\
+Should we forget the names of the dead?\\
+Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?\\
+Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.
+\end{verse}