statues

we paused at a statue from golden ages
so bright and proud! a chiseled name, distantly familiar,
reminiscent of better times than these.
i held my father's hand--or was it
grandfather, perhaps several further back--
and told him o! oh, how i missed those days somehow,
i yearned to see the bright ships sail, to watch
proud armies marching, marching on in nobler times.
life fills me with the telling: flecked
with crawling fear he'll tell me nothing changed,
men were small and weak then, too,
only statues must be legends, so they are. Doubt
expects such bittersweetened tones, a melancholic tale
of familiar dark and weakening days.
a fallen kingdom, he'll describe: former glory,
faded since to rusted gold. what tragic youth!
to have missed such time. i sigh; a silent age
has passed us by. my timid telling hangs between,
too much weight for our slender string
slung from mouth to ear; but he turns. i watch
his every skin-guised muscle pull!

i become him then, peering longishly
through so much generation and descent;
tell such eager, youthful eyes to laugh--
for splendid years they were! that built this stranger's statue:
but i knew him well, we basked in all that
summer splendor, winning wars of poetry and science
as we felled proud foes with righteous valor;
the city shone like marble, silver, a bright thing in the hills
we rode so gallantly bestride. Autumn filled our nostrils!
but overhead, a dark sky gathered leather wings and fiery breath,
so we rode out--! yes, i among his valiant troop: and here,
upon this very ground, bright arrows flung the demon earthward.
his blood was red, our swords sharp, but all of us hung back
with our lives guarded from the Menace's wounded throes.
and then! my friend, my captain, Mungo Gense, great man
whose image stands impressed upon this very stone,
lept forth! he drove his great blade true, between those giant paws--
and sung to us, from dragony gore, of innocent life defended.
what noble death! yes, those were Years! i tell
the eager self-child--

and no regrets! this automobile time
is no lesser, nor was the ancient past so cheapened
by less ancient errors. as glories then, still today
such wonders persist: but weightier,
with so much generation and descent above.
statued monuments we, too, shall leave behind;
grandfathers tell such marvelous stories at their stony feet,
the grim encompassings lend nobility through
time's deep-digging brush. i shall remember for my grandsons
the wonders of these years, the golden glory
of my youth to give them. no weaker years, my sons:
these are times of triumph, all.




1/9/09