They made the finest things
of bone and zealous shell:
homes for the scholars who
scuttled maze-like down
into their recondite holes
to resurface with gasped,
grasped pearls which seed
quixotic exquisitions
and ended always in death
and erasure; masks, too,
for the squalid of heart,
which hid and rendered animate
their unsuitable bent,
their burdensome loathing of life.

Like all constructed things,
none satisfied; all were shadows
cast by light, a pantomime
of the extinctions which
birthed them.

Look, you living, to those who
lived and are gone. Dream,
if you can, their onerous
weight, their limitless absence.