They burned Thebes to the ground. What grief is left
In that line not its own? Who else would mourn
A proud town lost so long since, since built back
More than once? Or do we bring our own grief
From news we’ve known in our own lives, lives lost
In our own time, to fill back in the line
The way a fall storm flash floods a dry wash?
When we read, if we find grief, is it ours?
A few scraps of the lost works of a man
Whose name was not saved were saved from a dump
In a place once known as Sharp-Nosed Fish Town,
And on one scrap was found dull lines of lists
That spelled out the way that Thebes had been ruled
In the years when it had not yet burned down.
No one would find grief in those lines—but then
If you know how the whole town and its schemes
And its souls were to be burnt, and you know
That those dull lines would rot for lives on lives
In a dump, the name of the life wrote them
Lost, you might grieve. Verbs, like seeds, hide to grow.
