Robert Wexelblatt
Memento Mori
There’s a majesty in the dying year,
a tragic sepia-saturated
acceptance, a dignity beyond fear.
To beseeching Lycaon Achilles said
that one morning, noon, or night he’d be dead,
even he, the most invincible of men;
yet he couldn’t say precisely how or when.
Prometheus must have believed in progress.
He gave us fire—medicine and metallurgy,
ships and shampoo—yet left us to guess
the date set for our death. He gave blind hope,
his last gift, condition of using the rest,
the boon of ignorance that helps us cope.
Progress? Sure, but not for him, not for those
who are chained and know they’re food for crows.
Ever wonder, as you watch the final brown
oak leaves shed their branches and spiral down,
wake to first frost and think of all that’s past,
whether this November will be the last?
Robert Wexelblatt is a professor of humanities at Boston University. He has published five fiction collections; two of essays; two short novels; essays, stories, poems in a variety of journals, and a novel awarded the Indie Book Awards first prize for fiction. A collection of Chinese and another of non-Chinese stories are forthcoming.
Memento Mori
There’s a majesty in the dying year,
a tragic sepia-saturated
acceptance, a dignity beyond fear.
To beseeching Lycaon Achilles said
that one morning, noon, or night he’d be dead,
even he, the most invincible of men;
yet he couldn’t say precisely how or when.
Prometheus must have believed in progress.
He gave us fire—medicine and metallurgy,
ships and shampoo—yet left us to guess
the date set for our death. He gave blind hope,
his last gift, condition of using the rest,
the boon of ignorance that helps us cope.
Progress? Sure, but not for him, not for those
who are chained and know they’re food for crows.
Ever wonder, as you watch the final brown
oak leaves shed their branches and spiral down,
wake to first frost and think of all that’s past,
whether this November will be the last?
Robert Wexelblatt is a professor of humanities at Boston University. He has published five fiction collections; two of essays; two short novels; essays, stories, poems in a variety of journals, and a novel awarded the Indie Book Awards first prize for fiction. A collection of Chinese and another of non-Chinese stories are forthcoming.