Lost Songs

Of once shouted poems

I hear the faintest echoes,

Just a murmur more than background noise today.

They sound a barely whispered chant

of ancient and confused distress

and if I try I can discern

a falling meter to it.

The Rubaiyat

rings with the harmonics

of all of Persia’s unremembered bards

but gone beyond all resonance

are those whose languages

as well as songs

are lost.