...The Muse is somewhere
Else, not hereBy this frozen lake—
Or, if here, then I am
Not poet enough
To make the connection.
Are we truly alone
with our physics and myths,
the stars no more
Than glittering dust,
With no one there
To hear our choral odes?
If so, we can start
To ignore the silence
Of the infinite spaces
And concentrate instead
On the infinity
Under our very noses—
The cry at the heart
Of the artichoke,
The gaiety of atoms.
Better to contemplate
The blank page
And leave it blank
Than modify
Its substance by
So much as a pen-stroke.
Woven of wood-nymphs,
It speaks volumes
No one will ever write.
I incline my head
To its candour
And weep for our exile.
Ovid in Tomis
in The Hunt by Night (1982)
Derek Mahon
Ovidiu în exil (1915)
Ion Theodorescu-Sion