sw00380jt-b1.e15

Justan Tamarind: Book I       e15                            



Of their embroiled government should weaken
Instead of being strong, like a beacon
Poorly set, I cannot tell.  But Ruam's
Days are not half myth, that, when we speak on
Them, must baffle; but knowing each one, calms
Concerns immeasurably, and so each did
In seventeen-thirty-two when the balms
Of unctions with oil blessed him home and slid
Those devils down who flicked their tongues amid

The missals/ and twisted round the rosaries;
Who set and nourished Paul of Trent's disease
Eleven years before.  With Ruam's loss,
His knighted subjects were so out of ease
They had a sculptor chisel them a cross
From a ten by five by two marble block,
Which they erected on a mound across
The Eribon where/ thirteen graves now lock
The bones of Tamarind's kings; and on a rock

From Nareb, which they set beyond the arch
To Lorga's Jonathan when whistling March
Curved against the stars, they had the same
Man slice out chips that looked like/ flakes of starch
But fell like/ flakes of steel to place the fame
Of Ruam in its skin, though arguments
As such/ could not make/ better known/ his name
The way--by publishing experiments--
A searcher/ will his.  What represents

Us best are those good acts no one perceives,
Not monuments that rise between the leaves
Of autumn and the leaves of spring, not words
Inscribed in stone.  Though Earth will have its thieves
and givers both remembered, a world girds
Itself for peace or girds itself for war;
And if for peace, it is a quiet world--
A world that has no need for rocks to shore
Its human soil; but such a world's not, nor,


For this blessed planet, likely to be.
And so the Pauls of Trent, the Ruams, we
Recall, to keep our bodies whole--the worse:
To make example of their roguery
And how they left off breathing with a curse;
The better: to inspire our children, us.
Yet worse or better, once beyond his nurse,
A man who will be famed or infamous
Will, well enough, be known, without the truss 





Brian A. J. Salchert