Byzantine Faces - Robert Lax

i won't believe
i'm really
alive

until i'm gladder
to be alive
here now
than to have
been alive
there then

living in greece
i may be
thinking
i am, was,
alive there
then

some byzantine
time
some classical
time

why think
that good?

i should
know better

i think good
any time except
the eighteenth
century

(not too bad)

the nineteenth

century

(bad enough)

or the twentieth

really, i'm
glad to be
alive in the
twentieth

not only glad
to be just
alive

but even to
be alive
just now
right now

yes, but i keep
remembering
a light in the
eyes of certain
figures in
frescoes

certain figures
in mosaics

that made
me wish
i was living
then

as though
living then
were to
live

forever

some life
some liveliness
in the eye
that seemed
eternal

eternally
alive
eternally
infinitely
joyous
& penetrating

(warm with
the warmth
of life
exploding,
even, with,
the joy
of life)

yet there
forever

is it
that see
ing them
in some
mu
se
um

seeing
them still
preserved
still
living

made me
envy
their
state

?

not
sure

am
not
sure,
either,
that it
was envy
they gave
me, but
rather a
life

a spark
of living
to keep
alive