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The Poetry of Alan Ireland...
TO BOETHIUS, IN RAVENNA
Nihil est miserum nisi cum putes; contraque
beata sors omnis est aequanimatate tolerantis.
(Nothing is miserable unless you think it so;
conversely, every lot is happy if you are content with
it.) - Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius, c.480-525
In the marshes, wet winds sigh.
No mountains mortise earth to sky.
As heavens reel, the state below
Falls victim to a vertigo:
Tribesmen from the steppes guffaw
On legal bench and Senate floor,
While here the Goth with garlic breath
Inventively designs your death.
No posture of the past relents
In taunting present impotence:
Triumphal arches stand today
Where porkers root and asses bray.
In droves, the master masons flee
A compromised eternity.
Yet in this fickleness you find
Instruction for the tethered mind,
Discern a pattern in the dust
That you, in shackles, now are thrust.
Alan Ireland
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