Classic Poem

We, the befallen fates,
We are known and necessitous
To all but the children.
And to them we are words:
We are death, not befallen.
We are justice, not swift.
We are knowledge, not ominous.

And their mother is a meanwhile.
She teaches them the game Self,
How to spin out suspense
By a winner and a next game:
While we, the fates to befall,
Keep our same watch of nearness
And unpredictableness.

To the children is given a mother,
To make them strong in days.
To the mother is given a dark spirit —
He brings the nights on.
From long time to long hell
Runs the story delaying
Death, the true story.

To the mother is given a lover —
Time gives the demon, Future.
But the father is the immediate
Angel of impatience.
Her very womb is a man,
And she but a meanwhile.

And the children are but a never.
And we are but the present
From which date back all deaths
To the past of all meanwhiles —
An order of shortcoming
Rising toward an ebb
Like children agedly
Prolonging childhood.