Drowsiness. A travel book. Stone bastions.
Halfway I’ve leaved through the old chateaux
of Provence, envied asylums astraddle
rough mounts, wondered: if not wanderlust, o scions
of strife, then what itch lures us through eons
and wakes us to rout? Across the dry plateaux
of sheets wind legions amd litters which addle
the sleep, ring out camp minions’ shrill paeans.
Since when we sleep we dream, how easy doom
in battle seems a transport, quick admission
to Elysium, free of scheme and schism.
Pilgrims lurching to our own tombs,
in journey’s trance we hallow our submission
to boundary, custom and ism.
***
Another sonnet from the Berkeley period, this one dedicated to a friend in tirade and despair. Neil and I shared a fascination with how far human cruelty can go, and how blindly we remain attached to the narrow worlds into which we are born. Though there is but contingent connection, the first verse echoes a line from Osip Mandelshtam: Insomnia, Homer, taut sails.