Our minds are cursed; they hear
the self dismantling beak
pick at our stitches, the gears
of its indifferent clock
track the embracing moist dark
where mind, beak, clock are unmade,

and the moon flooding pools where they were made;
those minds, being wise, would escape,
from age, disorder, flood,
accident and mistake,
that break the strongest mould;
we were hired foot soldiers,
sent against age and chance
to remedy their violence;

the world must not turn,
my dear, and bring its night
upon them, nor the tide return
where they built their houses by the might
of their arms; and into this fight,
against the turning of the world,
and the rising of waters, we two were hurled;

honor is won by serving
the many and the bold; honor
is a medal, gold braid, a gold ring
placed by grateful fingers
upon a grateful finger;
we were honored, my dear,
honored soldiers in an honorable war.

But clock, beak, mind decline
together, in one dance,
one intricate machine
beyond our influence;
we cobbled, with coarse tools, where chance
had chipped, but our crude repairs
were vain, unless flesh made the remedy and cure;

and yet, my dear, and yet,
I would not see the sky blacken
over you, your sun be at rest,
the vacant moon draw sea wrack
over you, nor the malicious stroke
divide all memory
from reach of voice, or hand, or eye;

and I shall weep if the hand comes
down to you, for all its kindness,
and that it shall bring you to a home
more beautiful than ours; no less
shall I weep when it caress
me, and take me within
its shell; for this world is my heaven;

and I am glad for what comfort
I have brought, though mine was a modest
offering, of a quiet and a weak sort,
and only for a few, at best;
it will pleasure me when my rest
is come: in the hand's cradle,
in the last moment of the last miracle.