Is it over yet, Fernando?
Your statue shrugs still waiting at your · table on the square
If it's you that waits, Fernando,
And not another effigy of absence you declare
As the pigeons gravely bob
And the first few lamps · of evening griffins throb.
Nothing ever ends, Fernando,
Though attention flags and humans have to · give it up for lost
You were not afraid, Fernando,
Yourself to scatter like the crumbs · the lazy tourists tossed
This is not a night of masks
But a day of tanks and buzzards circling · slowly down to roost.
There was something in the stars you saw
You could not draw, Fernando:
Crazy patterns to the way we turn
Your eyes discern, Fernando
Even as you float away
And try to say
If I had a name and origin
I'd render them, Fernando.
Now the Internet, Fernando,
Has come along to rescue us · who never could before
Leave our words like you, Fernando,
Bronzed a thousand ways and read · like driftwood on the shore
I can hear your voice in each
Perverse soliloquy · and parody of speech.
There was something in the stars you saw
You could not draw, Fernando:
Crazy patterns to the way we turn
Your eyes discern, Fernando
Even as you float away
And try to say
If I had a name and origin
I'd render them, Fernando;
But I have no name or origin
To render now, Fernando.
10 26 05
