This is the hour Marais told us about
some time in the days before we were born
while the sun went down over Africa
in the youth of the century and age
gathered upon him with the returning
black ceiling of morphine Eugène Marais
watching our ancestors in the evening
our contemporaries in the strange world
their descendants had made as shadows reached
toward them he recognized in their shadow
a shadow of his own it was the time
for boasting before the end of the day
strutting and playing having decided
upon the sleeping place near the water
the time of the children playing swinging
by a rock pool and then the sun went down
and the voices fell silent and the games
were still and the old were overcome with
a great sadness and then the sounds of mourning
began for the whole loss without a name
he called it the hour of Hesperean
Melancholy but as he knew it could
visit at its own moment here it is
the choir loft in the church burned long ago
childhood in a blue robe and suddenly
no sound but the depth of loss unknown loss
irreparable and nameless and tears
with no word for them although there may be
playing again later in the darkness
even for a long time in the moonlight
and singing again out of the dark trees
The Time of Shadow
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