Shrines

For Neil Worth (1948-2016)

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 and 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 toward our own tombs,
in journey’s trance we hallow our submission
to boundary, custom and ism.

*

Neil Worth, a dear friend during my Berkeley years, loved this poem I wrote for him. It begins with an echo of Osip #Mandelstam’s Insomnia. Homer