Labuntur et Imputantur
It was overcast. No hour at all was indicated by the gnomon.
With difficulty I made out the slogan, Time and tide wait for no man.
I had been waiting for you, Daphne, underneath the dripping laurels, near
The sundial glade where first we met. I felt like Hamlet on the parapets of Elsinore,
Alerted to the ectoplasmic moment, when Luna rends her shroud of cloud
And sails into a starry archipelago. Then your revenant appeared and spake aloud:
I am not who you think I am. For what we used to be is gone. The moment’s over,
Whatever years you thought we spent together. You don’t know the story. And moreover,
You mistook the drinking-fountain for a sundial. I put my lips to its whatever,
And with difficulty I made out the slogan, Drink from me and you shall live forever.
Copyright Credit: Ciaran Carson, "Labuntur et Imputantur" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2009 by Ciaran Carson. Reprinted by permission of Wake Forest University Press.
Source: Collected Poems (Wake Forest University Press, 2009)