To the Echoless

Today we lay audience to the echoless,
We, the marble busts and skirted plaque
Watch our halls fill like omni-broached keel;
Mouths agape spill waters meant for drowning.

Yet our chins are dry — feet rinsed.

And when again we read the words so sewn
Into our caucus of immutable stone, lest we
Forget the blemished hands who set them;
Casting into flesh Ciceronian hearts.

What sorrow neighbor’s plan, the folly of man,
Upon whose black waters Liberty sails afloat.
Their voices heavy sink silent down the wake,
Dissolving echoless, evermore.