Report

There are for all of us those times
When we know nothing:

We, who were gathered by ritual
Together, had elected a speaker
Who chose not to speak,
Leaving only the expectation
Dissolved like a puff of smoke
And spilling the smell
Of burnt hope over the air.

Embarassed, shuffling
From side to side,
Coughing over whispers,
We waited for the signal
To depart.

Soon the crowd will cleave
Like the tread of the waves
On the edge of a shelf
Of shore retreating steadily,
Leaving only the pale
Imprint of a pace to stand
On the surface, then seep
Through phenomenal haze.

These congregations of time
Must also have their meaning,
These social bodies likewise carry weight
In memory – but how
When the speaker never spoke, when the song
Remains unsung?

Was it a dream, a half-bar heard
In obscure chambers,
Trembling on the hook
But unretrieved?

Whose was the voice, what specter of a face
Wavered like the surface of delusions,
Colors of the water under light?

Everything pointed to a savior,
Rock whose favor firmed foundations,
Ballast in the storm,

But the giant was already timber,
Fallen unobserved,
A rumor of the wind
About the leaves;

And the hero had never departed –
Because he would never return:
Forgotten, then half-remembered,
He was distant, victorious, stern.