IN MEMORIAM
                    IOANNIS CAROLI BORDENII,
                    NVPER PATER IONATHANI POËTÆ ET CHRISTOPHORI FRATRIS EIVS
          ✠
                    NATVS HALIFACII NOVÆ SCOTIÆ
                    DIE VICESIMO SECVNDO MENSIS APRILIS,
                    ANNO DOMINI MILLESIMO NONGENTESIMO SEXAGESIMO QVINTO
          ✠
                    MORTVVS NANAIMO COLVMBIÆ BRITANNICÆ
                    DIE VICESIMO QVINTO MENSIS MAII,
                    ANNO DOMINI BIS MILLESIMO DECIMO
          ✠
                    ANNO QVADRAGESIMO QVINTO ÆTATIS SVÆ,
                    DE FILIO AD PATREM HOC POËMA SCRIPTVM EST
                    SEPTIMO ANNIVERSARIO DIE MORTIS EIVS

          i.
                    As above so below, where cold misery
follows his loss in hot pursuit, mouth foaming,
flagrant anguish pulsing as he pauses to
watch, with ancient eyes, pathless shadows tiptoe
through a broken heart’s darkest wilderness, where
wandering gods find refuge augury ends
and, almost with it, this world of bold men and
heroes, one of them sent out, by sorrowful
longing compelled to fly to where whispers and
                    lies gather rumour’s strands into a web of
          ii.
                    echoes, myth and murder met by vengeance when
Avernus opens its rusted jaws and calls
in his dutiful son, this Ionathan by
his fallen father’s silent shade summoned to
avenge or to comfort him, consolation
less likely than an assassin’s impassioned
precision to warrant a conviction, this
lonesome and loathsome forest a prison where
both justice and victims unjustly slain fall,
                    together crawling, corpses toward rarest
          iii.
                    villagers and fortune-seekers running, spilled
oil no one comes to cleanse from souls tortured by
its toil, soothsayers and lunatics turned fast
to intrepid adventurers when, under
the world’s rancorous blanket of death-dusted
night, crescented eyes of moonlight lift their lids
and bend, tears piercing soil, tearing into its
danger like dragon’s teeth thrown in a fit of
concern not anger, sowing warning instead
                    of discord, clawing through layers of ages
          iv.
                    to warn visitors that there is one way in,
but none out of here, luminous shafts cast like
oracle bones or spears, scattering into
ears premonitions like seeds for cautious minds
to eat, hope’s task indeed futile where no birds
fly, where seeds, like words, are no diet for those
who would die just to see inside afterlife’s
canal, a tunnel wet with weeping, and lined
with cries those denied second birth sigh, burning
                    Avernus where Ionathan seeks Ioannes,
          v.
                    to free his house’s paterfamilias,
to twine with memory’s silver strand their blood’s
withered vine, and restore to full strength the line
of Bordenius, before ravenous time
approaches and swallows up them both, drinking
in an old family like new wine, broken
earth indifferent to choking on its thread,
heredity’s ruby silk dropped like a stitch
by pain’s inexperienced nursemaid, her hands
                    ill-prepared and untrained to suture heavy
          vi.
                    tragedy’s gaping wounds, this tomb impatient,
a labyrinth waiting, whose walls cough with dust
and amazement that, to this day, its secrets
still attract his heirs, everyone a son
of Theseus who abandons all hope and
dares to enter here, foolish courage spent like
false currency by millions, no less than by
brave Ionathan, as cunning and determined
as he is stubborn, with his veins drawing him
                    to a well from which no more love can be drawn,
          vii.
                    Avernus a cavernous furnace heaven’s
eagles and thunderbolts avoid, a void his
world above fills when it tosses deep into
its fervid throes passion’s most notorious
criminals, and ambition’s blind adherents,
nearing its lips, Ionathan kneeling in prayer
slips and, glancing surface’s distant clouds, hits
this pit’s bottom, glimpsing life’s reflection in
its mirror gloom shrouds, viewing heaven upside
                    down, thinking to himself, ‘What do I do now?’