In This Time – a poem

If the myth’s outworn, the legend broken,
Useless even within the child’s story
Since he sees well they now bring light no longer
Into our eyes: and if our past retreats
And blows away like dust along the desert,
Not leading to our moment now at all,
Settling us in this place and saying ‘Here
In you I shall continue’–then what kind
Of lives have we? Can we make myths revive
By breathing on them? Is there any taper
That will return the glitter to our eyes?

by Elizabeth Jennings