Once gaily painted And awash in joyful Rites and the blood Giving warmth to the slumbering crowds The wise man who is not wise Sits and broods And dreams of the hills of youth The glowing gold of wind-dancing wheat And the embracing shade of verdant oaks And he knows that the memory Is a falsehood Born of the batterings of the present Merely a chimera of what should have been A balm for the litany of regrets Left unerringly in his wake Like in any other And the anchorite dreams He dreams a shaman carving blood unto Darkened cavern ribs Whilse shadows dance To the ecstatic rythms Of the Pacan. He dreams of pages of gossamer and spider web Whose words will not survive their altercation back to dust And of words that moulder in Mustered ranks In endless volumes in endless Maesoleums Whose foundations are the tide of the ocean He dreams of deep rivers of tears Of men as foolish as he Who would spread their days In the hopes of something more As anchorites numberless and alone Stare deep into the father sun Whose death is but a promise They cleanse their eyes Wash time from their sight With all else And so become immortal