00:01The Patriarchs, An Elegy
00:04The weather in the window this morning is snow
00:09Unseasonal singular flakes, a slow winter's final shiver
00:13On such an occasion, to presume to eulogise one man
00:18Is to pipe up for a whole generation
00:21That crew whose survival was always the stuff of minor miracle
00:27Who came ashore in orange-crate coracles
00:30Fought ingenious wars
00:33Finagled triumphs at sea with flaming decoy boats
00:37And sidestepped torpedoes
00:40Husbands to duty, they unrolled their plans
00:45Across billiard tables and vehicle bonnets
00:48Regrouped at breakfast
00:50What their secrets were, was everyone's guests
00:54And nobody's business
00:55Great-grandfathers from birth
00:58In time they became both inner core and outer case
01:03In a family heirloom of nesting dolls
01:07Like evidence of early man
01:09Their boot prints stand in the hardened earth
01:12Of rose beds and borders
01:16They were sons of a zodiac out of sync with the solar year
01:20But turned their minds to the day's big science and heavy questions
01:25To study their hands at rest
01:28Was to picture maps showing hatched valleys and indigo streams
01:34Schemes of old campaigns and reconnaissance missions
01:37Last of the great avuncular magicians
01:41They kept their best tricks for the grand finale
01:45Disproving immortality and disappearing entirely
01:51Major oaks in the woods start tuning up
01:54And skies to come will deliver their tributes
01:58But for now, a cold April's closing moments
02:02Parachute slowly home
02:04So by mid-afternoon
02:06Snow is recast as seed heads
02:10And thistle down
02:11So by mid-afternoon
02:12So by mid-afternoon
02:14So by mid-afternoon
02:14So by mid-afternoon
02:14So by mid-afternoon
02:14So by mid-afternoon
02:15So by mid-afternoon
02:15So by mid-afternoon
02:15So by mid-afternoon
02:15Gracias.
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