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All I want is a voice,
Something to echo, for at least as long as ears can hear,
As long as this arrangement of sounds can express what I feel,
Until English goes the way of Minoan.

Will you give me my voice?
If I formally request it, will you inspire me?

*Sing, o Muse,
Of man’s many ways,
Our first disobedience,
Of rage and countless ills.
Help me put in verse things most difficult to grasp.*

Apparently, you didn’t hear me.
If I call to you in meter and rhyme
Will that stir you?

*Tell me why the seasons change,
Tell me why day falls to night,
Who, before the dust had breath,
Arranged the firmamental lights?*

Still nothing.
Is it because *firmamental* isn’t a word?
Should I have used a more gender-neutral term than man?
Where is your intellectual breeze?
Descend.
I’ll be your damn harp.

To your silence, I dedicate these words that follow.
Not in bitterness,
But on the assumption that I’m talking to myself.

* * * 

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