The Diagnosis

By John Lee Clark
An erasure of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Palingenesis”
I, sobbing in the rolling mist,
Started for peopled days. In dreams
A faded, lonely promontory shed petals.
Belief exists. Cunning with its perfume
Working from youth, defiance. A phantom
Vanished. The swift surrenders, leap into
The old dead heart of lies.
I will give, remembering my turns
Into foliage. Of what light unseen!
What, what, what, what, what, what
Will hold still without its end?

Source: Poetry (October 2018)