"FORGETFULNESS
Forgetfulness is like a song
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled,
Outspread and motionless,--
A bird that coasts the wind unwearingly.
Forgetfulness is rain at night,
Or an old house in a forest,--or a child.
Forgetfulness is white,--white as a blasted tree,
And it may stun the sybil into prophecy,
Or bury the Gods.
I can remember much forgetfulness."
--Hart Crane
"Saturn said:
But what is that wonder, so widely faring,
so stern in onset, that strikes at foundations,
wakes woedroplets, as it wages against us?
Nor may stars or stones, nor strongest gems,
nor water nor wild beast, one whit escape,
for its hands grip all: the hard and soft,
meek and mighty; whose maw swallows,
without fail each year, to feed its hunger,
of the land-living, aloft-flying
and water-swimming of world-dwellers,
three times thirteen a thousandfold?
Solomon said:
Over everything on Earth, Age is mighty;
she slips on the bonds of her enslaving chain’s
far-reaching fetters, fastens the shackles
with lengthy links, of her leash as she wills.
She breaks the branches, beats down the trees,
wrenches their roots up; in her ruthless course
she fells to the floor the faltering trunks:
even the wildfowl she gobbles, like a wolf in rage,
more steadfast than stone, as steel in hardness,
eats iron with rust—she is all-consuming."
--Rahul Gupta, from the OE "Second Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn"
Finalists for the 59th Nebula awards. Which, now that the Hugos have gone all jumpsky sharksky, is IT.
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