Die Götterdämmerung

Lost, fatigued, and lonely
I remember the twilight
Of another race:
Their men were thin as bronze wires,
Their women were like grapes, unseeded,
Fruitless. They lived
In cities of glass
That trembled with reflected lakes
In which they cultivated
Fish, bronze fish with golden scales
And topaz eyes, and they called the colored waters
Beauty. When it rained
They would lie out under the stars
And hope to be burned;
When the sun came dripping down
They would hide under their rooves as thick
As wicker baskets. They lived
In a solitary climate of ghosts, and listened
Most attentively for the murmuring of trees
That were piled around them, eggs
In a snow-capped mountain.
Their language had no meaning.