May's rains, a quiet incantation,

                    the animals come and go,

                    on the far-distant hills, snow melts, as the river flows;

                    time is a demon

                    the animals know.

 

                    It’s looking for you, y'know:

                  ...in the abdomen – demons go

                  ...in the albumin – demons go

                  ... in the acumen – demons go

 

                  In and around all things, all the time, ye know,

                  the serpent-slick, soothsayer sayeth so:

                          O! why do the wicked prosper?

                          O! why do the innocent die?

                          gold, frankincense, myrrh,

                          Yea! the bigger the lie

                          the less the world will sigh.

 

                         Ye know the many works of the demon:

                           fear, disaster, pillage, rape,

                           greed, complacency, self-serving 'fate.'

                        Yea, even in the comfort of this  mild-April-blossomed morn,

                           with this dew-bejewelled early green, like Eden’s dawn,

                           even here, the viper weeps.

 

                       So sing ye all the songs of stormy autumn,

                       Weary riverman, floating down the sleepy old Lethe,

                       So sing ye all the passing strangeness of the night,

                       Weary riverman, whispering to this failing autumn light.