The Void

    The years have taught us, on the rim

of the unrailed pit of unknowing,

to stare down at purest blank

knowing the ledge we stand on

is more, as we ourselves are,

of that pit, floored with

ignorance only, faith

and consternation.

                               Middle age

returns us with a richer despair

to that pubescent catastrophe

(quaintly nineteenth-century)

when our coats of knowing

raveled us naked to winds

of namelessness--

still without name.