Today poets
can only be
ironic.
Understatements,
contrasts,
paradoxes,
give them away.

The ancients
were different.
They had on their side
a god
or a goddess
if they had not fallen from
their always uncertain favour.
They repeated
aere perennius.
What pride!

They foresaw
nothing.
Now
they are faced with
the scorched earth order
(which is carried out
without fail),
the old start-over
and a blank
sheet.