Windows And Doors — Grunge Art by kenne
(The Fortune-teller’s Words to the Poet)
The way downward is easy from Avernus.
Black Dis’s door stands open night and day.
But to retrace your steps to heaven’s air,
There is the trouble, there is the hard task.
And now he is wandering through a labyrinth
Of dead-end corridors and empty tunnels,
Broken mirrors and smudged signs pointing
Nowhere, voices echoing like footsteps
In the iron hallways. Listen to me:
If you want to become more than a shadow
Among shadows, you must carry back the memory
Of your father disintegrating in your arms,
You must bring words that will console others,
You must believe in stairs leading upward
To summer’s resplendent, celestial blues.”
— from the poem “Sortes Virgilianae” by Edward Hirsch
