Seventy-One

Music: Fugue in G minor.
By Dimitri Shostakovich. Sequenced by J. Marques.

Alpha List

Seventy-one looks back far more than forward
Even as he sails on towards death,
Vast as ever, infinite as ever,
Ever inmate of the house of breath.
Nor does he fear the future he goes toward,
The end that more and more means less and less.
Yearning sends him mentally upriver.
Old memories, like landmarks, draw him hither,
Nearer what he never can recover,
Embers of a world he once possessed.