You who cast your living snobbery against
our years long past ought to bear it lightly;
for your raw urging to study our exploits
reflects presence in spirit just as brightly.
Yet the greatest achievement you can make
will linger merely awhile after you descend
and then will become natron to desiccate
all of you a person could ever apprehend.
Your own works will mummify the richness
of scents which you gladly inhale with delight,
shrivel the beauty of your daily ambulance,
darken eyes which once found the light.
My divine wife and I transcend this stone
so pass our monuments in measured paces;
we felt tenderness never to be captured
by carvings on five ton sandstone faces.
