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ITINERA FELICIA
SEVEN LAMENTS

R. Sigglio

(written in 2558)





This extended cycle of seven poems reflects Ramois Sigglio’s preoccupation with the dislocation of the individual from the alienation of the modern world. The following is the first poem in its entirety.


I

In dream I dreamt I died a death and watched with vision
clear as light my doom approach, my final movement near;
and sensed within me rise a secret, half-known fear,
a locked-in terror we nourish and nurture deep within,
behind our pretty delights, our mortals’ hopes:
that dread of seeing for real one’s own time
slinking silently off, and stealing away,  
smiling calmly, as we crumple to the ground.

Lest fate heap on us some scourge, some unbridled chaos,
this fear we shall not truly know, except in depthless dream
where we might hear sentence passed upon our earthly selves,
and executed.
  
                    This bitter taste on waking long lingers,
haunts my daylight, reminds me how on that night
I’d drawn so close to the unique point of impact
whose ripples reach so far across the surface of our lives
that often it has stopped me dreaming at all.
But this night, I knew it well, as if real, tugging me gently
towards the abyss, the blackness, though sensed, indiscernible;

and later woke in rooms normally so familiar,
aware only that I sensed the world anew,
as though this frail, flimsy self now has shifted,
and loosed on me a glimpse of my own mortal body,
faithful companion, as it wilts and expires.
Now at that loss, unwaking witness, I know true sorrow:

A clawing, nagging sorrow which pesters me day and night,
reminding me how it is to feel thus, yet be without god.
This black dog of despair which creeps upon me now,
the soul’s ransom for freedom from comforting religion!
Clear-sighted, at least, and tired from this living,
I’ll face my final oblivion and know it
for what it is: a silent, barren weeping for lost innocence -
the same saintly innocence we so long to lose
while we still have faith.

A sorrow that will follow my steps till invisible age
wreathes me in its slumber, cocoons me in its grip,
hindering the climb uphill I so almost relished as I thrived,
thinning the blood I heard throbbing as I craved life’s joys;
don’t turn and expect me gone, it whispers…
I am your shadow now, for good,
and at every turn you will glimpse
my mocking mimicry of your every move.

A sorrow begotten of knowledge, privy to the outcome,
to our future, the end of our days. What strange fate it is for Man
to be haunted by both his future as well as his past.
This future - for some, God-ordained; for others,
mere feckless chance lost in the embers of events -
as certain as the setting of the sun, tomorrow’s sombre dawn,
lurks in wait for us, as unavoidable as anything we might touch.
Somewhere all the futures of each person,
each creature, each empire, this whole world, all reside
in a form not even conceivable to humans’ minds,
not ready-formed in some cavernous, celestial factory,
stored waiting in vast warehouses piled high with vats.
But, somehow, in some state beyond our reckoning,
they must exist.
                            
  Waiting most likely for us,
for our actions to grant them an essence
as something different, tangible to humans: the past perhaps?

© Copyright Paul David Holland 2017