Tabula Rasa

They wrote as if engraved in marble,
and you, the always understood you,
reading the inscription in an elegiac field.

Great gift, to have their topic so determined.
To have that appearance of inevitability,
and the silent space in which to write it.

If it failed to grip it was still graceful,
uninterrupted. The long line of the work
went on, as in the Odyssey.