Between the City Gates and the Sea

Late scholar of my own despair

I breathe an air alive with omen

yet grieve at a change

when every child in a flowery town

knows ashes, ashes all fall down-

dry rain of ash made metaphor

for the sudden personal Pompeii.

Runners from that fiery fall

were found cast down in ash-daily we flee

between the fire and the sea.

Unmoving, the desperate flight unmade,

death will invade by ingrown weather.

Now test the twins of choice;

return's slim chance and the bitter breaking

if every road leads to leave-taking.

In sulphurous light sense ash and cinder,

the fall of small and scorching stones-

Will my bones be found

with the cowards crushed in their cellarholes,

crouched over jewels and shattered bowls?

A hero travels his brave bloodstream,

Himself the city and sea of dream.

Structure

22 lines · 5 stanzas