Despite its beauty, and all its lasting worth,
the past has no power to soothe our current ills –
any more than it could cure its own.
And so we leave the golden domes of yesterday
like cranes that wing through sacred skies:
we seek another home.
But where shall we go now – we who are too late
to wake Byzantium, too soon to walk the stars?
Unless the mind be made again,
there are no present shores
where hope takes root and meaning dwells.
Shrugging the dying present, let us
strive to sail to lands beyond the now –
to future shores where better selves are found.
Where the one bright star of hope prevails,
and we, late coming, are finally renewed.
