What fever so inflamed the lad within?
As godless will driven to pointless fate unbidden?
To offer up himself before the first dawn to the presence?
To see the moon gleam on black velvet?

       Does he see as we see  -- the memory of himself
as it ages like hardwood in the minds of those -- who know?
Does he age like buried diamonds are forgotten?

       More than these things  -- He is gone,
gone altogether beyond.


© Carlton Godbold 1987

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