XI

Lost works are brief deaths

Afflicting imagination

With marbled immobility - - -

Each work broken from our presence,

An irreplaceable fragment of ourselves,

Stranded in the world's vast anonymity,

Blunts emerging efforts to construct

Discovery into new replicas of reality

As we recognize the permanence ---

So carefully shaped from the fabric of ourselves---

Was but a masquerade,

A futile illusion catching our fancy

And fading

In shadows of forgetfulness.