| Four Sketches for Characters in Landscapes Ernest Hilbert |
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i. The Scholar Stands Before the Mosaic of Aeneas at the Bardo in Tunis Such ways as those lost in endless verses Are here reconquered and vivid with heat, The ceaseless broken days borrowed And translated, fading chips glued into mosaics. The ancient turquoise fish curve, enclosing Aeneas's blank simper and sea-tangled hair. The breakers slither in, dousing trouser-cuffs in camel dung and seaweed, Fossilized, these epics, and the fastening of Flame into prismatic tranquility, | Motes of color like pixels composing a map: "Even the single memory of a lost passion Remains for centuries until we perceive it," As if to verge, to engage, were merely a parody Of that love that first joined us; though these debts Are unlikely to be redressed or meet with rhyme in this age. As one is implausibly upheld by serenity In the last moments before commerce is cut From oasis to coast, sky ensnared below the waters,  | |||
