The nike of samothrace.

Sometime long ago when boys ruled us,
Grown-ups wore decorative laurels in their thinning hair,
And marble rose from every field,
Either born out on a servant's back or
Ripened up in the rain naturally--
Each white and gray crowning in the grass
Pealed for its hour.

Certainly there must have been observers,
people with no premeditated desire to remember or
Even see.

But they saw.

See now the way she lacks a head,


Those bygone, laureled witnesses could not have wagered to even expect
Such white and gray
Hours
Diminishing not her
But our apprehension.