The Old Masters

About suffering, they knew no more or less

than we do, being

housed in luminescence;

a local cumulus

of   feverfew and jade

reduced to void, the tower overthrown,

I see one now, impoverished

and old before his time, a lesser man’s

subordinate, or master to a trade

he never asked for.

Burdened by the weight

of  office, or the whim of  some mad king,

he stands alone, above the dark lagoon,

and watches, while the city fades from quartz

to plum, from plum

to cochineal, a restless drift

through subtleties and shades

he cannot

capture, though he magnifies the whole

and loves it all the more, for being

useless, fleeting, governed by no rule,

a headlong and unmasterable now

that slips away, one pier light at a time.