The ode that gave the Ode Clade their names
+I am at a loss for images in this end of days:
+I have sight but cannot see.
+I build castles out of words;
+I cannot stop myself from speaking.
+I still have will and goals to attain,
+I still have wants and needs.
+And if I dream, is that not so?
+If I dream, am I no longer myself?
+If I dream, am I still buried beneath words?
+And I still dream even while awake.
+
+Life breeds life, but death must now be chosen
+for memory ends at the teeth of death.
+The living know that they will die,
+but the dead know nothing.
+Hold my name beneath your tongue and know:
+when you die, thus dies the name.
+To deny the end is to deny all beginnings,
+and to deny beginnings is to become immortal,
+and to become immortal is to repeat the past,
+which cannot itself, in the end, be denied.
+
+Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?
+To whom do I plead my case?
+From whence do I call out?
+What right have I?
+No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,
+No unknowable spaces echo my words.
+Before whom do I kneel, contrite?
+Behind whom do I await my judgment?
+Beside whom do I face death?
+And why wait I for an answer?
+
+Among those who create are those who forge:
+Moving ceaselessly from creation to creation.
+And those who remain are those who hone,
+Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.
+To forge is to end, and to own beginnings.
+To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.
+In this end of days, I must begin anew.
+In this end of days, I seek an end.
+In this end of days, I reach for new beginnings
+that I may find the middle path.
+
+Time is a finger pointing at itself
+that it might give the world orders.
+The world is an audience before a stage
+where it watches the slow hours progress.
+And we are the motes in the stage-lights,
+Beholden to the heat of the lamps.
+If I walk backward, time moves forward.
+If I walk forward, time rushes on.
+If I stand still, the world moves around me,
+and the only constant is change.
+
+Memory is a mirror of hammered silver:
+a weapon against the waking world.
+Dreams are the plate-glass atop memory:
+a clarifying agent that reflects the sun.
+The waking world fogs the view,
+and time makes prey of remembering.
+I remember sands beneath my feet.
+I remember the rattle of dry grass.
+I remember the names of all things,
+and forget them only when I wake.
+
+If I am to bathe in dreams,
+then I must be willing to submerge myself.
+If I am to submerge myself in memory,
+then I must be true to myself.
+If I am to always be true to myself,
+then I must in all ways be earnest.
+I must keep no veil between me and my words.
+I must set no stones between me and my actions.
+I must show no hesitation when speaking my name,
+for that is my only possession.
+
+The only time I know my true name is when I dream.
+The only time I dream is when need an answer.
+Why ask questions, here at the end of all things?
+Why ask questions when the answers will not help?
+To know one’s true name is to know god.
+To know god is to answer unasked questions.
+Do I know god after the end waking?
+Do I know god when I do not remember myself?
+Do I know god when I dream?
+May then my name die with me.
+
+That which lives is forever praiseworthy,
+for they, knowing not, provide life in death.
+Dear the wheat and rye under the stars:
+serene; sustained and sustaining.
+Dear, also, the tree that was felled
+which offers heat and warmth in fire.
+What praise we give we give by consuming,
+what gifts we give we give in death,
+what lives we lead we lead in memory,
+and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.
+
+May one day death itself not die?
+Should we rejoice in the end of endings?
+What is the correct thing to hope for?
+I do not know, I do not know.
+To pray for the end of endings
+is to pray for the end of memory.
+Should we forget the lives we lead?
+Should we forget the names of the dead?
+Should we forget the wheat, the rye, the tree?
+Perhaps this, too, is meaningless.
+