If you would weep, weep freely--
Your tears will bear me over Styx
More quickly,
And I would that it were done.
But say that I did not go gently,
Fetal borne and fetal spent--
A patient dangling
From the needles in my veins
But say I heard the mermaids singing
Heard their siren voices ringing
In the wires
That brace my wings.
But say, like Icarus exalted,
Striving--even as my fletching failed--
To touch the sunswept reaches,
Was laughing as I fell.
Loren Schreiber, 2002