Emptiness Of Things Poem by gershon hepner

Immeasurable the emptiness of things,
the power that ordains the common doom,
the sting of death and hellish ting-a-lings
compelling us to fill the empty tomb
awaiting us with efforts that are hollow,
less likely to survive than are our bones,
for everything we strive to do and follow
is moss that will not grow on rolling stones.



From 'To Himself' by Giacomo Leopardi (99 Poems in Translation, ' selected by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert, published by Grove) :


Lie quiet now. Despair
For the last time. Fate granted to our kind
Only to die. And now you may despise
Yourself, nature, the brute
Power which, hidden, ordains the common doom,
And all the immeasurable emptiness of things.

10/19/99,12/17/09