What prayers do I say
At the catacombs
This morning of high dew?

And who shall burn a taper
Behind me
To ease the ghost-darkness of a
Frightened city?

What stanza of the paternoster
Does the aggrieved philanthropist
Who lies hereunder comprehend —
Grief or languor or sorrow or lament?

The hour of the catacombs
Is admonished and charged.
It sinks below an unfathomable well.

The taper blinks to final death,
And there’s zero hour —more profound now,
Yet my questions remain unanswered.