Old tombs, you never leave me long.
Your heavy lids still guard their dreams:
the murmurs of the ancient streams
roll on like half-remembered folksong.
Though some have awoken, their black eyes
as wide as shepherds: all honeysuckle
and stillness, they give out a trickle
of new-hatched, bone-white butterflies.
I praise all things wrested from doubt.
Those black mouths opening to speak,
having learnt the truth of silence.
So do we know it, or do we not?
This question is the hesitance
that darkens every human face.
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