Lacunae
Nine inches high, this bedside table stack,
Though just four books. How long these monuments
Will last—or take— (I have been worse than slack
In shoring up) remains, at all events,
Substantial. Weeks or months, not just a day,
May have to pass before these few more gaps
Are closed. But then, when Bede and Rabelais
Have bid good-bye, Proust run his final laps
With Gibbon in this distance race, what then?
Close up, in bed, I’ll start my new close reading,
New monuments old classic bricks succeeding.
Turn on the bedside lamp. Begin again.
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Len Krisak‘s most recent books are Say What You Will (original verse) and a translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. With work in the Hudson, Sewanee, Southwest, Antioch, and PN Reviews, he is the recipient of the Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost Prizes, and a four-time champion on Jeopardy!
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 