The Work of Mourning

Why bring back the molting and powdery histories
of the middle age,
because the knight has departed forever? --

Just as the sun saps water
And the mud becomes dry and cracked,
Leaving a desert, a lifeless plane
Whose intersection is the present
Moment, and by whose dissection
Both are robbed -- accompanied

By his minstrels in concert,
The fairy's spells, the glory of his...
I couldn't find 'preux': I think maybe 'pres'
With the acute over the 'e', 'lawns' (?),
But also the preacher's
Circumflex, perhaps when he lifts his hands
Above his head (I imagine),
Figuring the 'omega', beseeching the mercy
Of his lord:

For he has departed to --
Or the capital has diminished
To the lower case --
Or when I think of him,
I see an image that retains
Its focus, as sharp as its parts,
But which has lost
Its electricity,
That je ne sais quoi that made it
More than it could ever be.

What does this incredulous century care -- incredulous?
Because it was so incredible, or...? -- We who are so in awe
Have lost all sense of awe -- for our marvelous legends --
Note to the reader: legenda, what ought to be read --
Saint George breaking a lance over Charles the Seventh,
At the tourney of Lucon...

I leave you now, Bertrand,
Because I don't love books that much,
(And in this respect I am closer to Russell
Than you), leave you to pore
Across the letters of the past,
A world of dust, a world
In the absence of the world,
Yearning for that absence,
Since to yearn for what is gone is called mourning,
A mourning that always secludes itself
To the night of an obscure page.