Feather’d cormorant assumes its customary
Posture scowling over the field of grace
What main or goads are these
What madmen locked

Fierce predecessor who fashioned the creed
Or refashioned it to suit current fashion
Whereupon silence descended
Upon the agriculture the children the bugs

The branching island the labyrinth of mirrors
The mockingbird’s digital glitch
The midnight forest of faulty dilemmas
And Hatshepsut a tyrant for all that

The well-intentioned muster
Only token resistance
To the ancient catalog
Regarded by them as a foregone conclusion