They glide, gullible circles-
Like aging shadows they hover,
Cast their darkness upon themselves:
Bleak and weak and meek
With gray swollen eyes;
With a weight agitating as agate stone;
With heavy sullen sighs.

They sail upon the seas
as sailors did in past:
Discovering no more than thee
Worming awry in murky water,
Green with rotten sludge and algae,
In a grimy, slimy, boat-
Gazing on into amethyst mist,
Gaping, and shadowing low above the mirror.

And their lives eat away:
Like green inky blood of fleshy leaves
cooled and killed by frost
clinging to the edge of them;
Like sap in sun dries dumb
Turning numb and deaf to amber stone.

Their ancient hymn seeks for a rhyme
Which wills for change, but ends in chime.