A Dialogue in the Stoneworks

Said the Curator of Easy Dying
to the Auditor of Knuckle Bones,
“There’s a move afoot, I’m thinking.
A Man can feel it coming.”

“Um,” said the Auditor, counting the Medes and Persians,
“why not? With nothing to do and only
his jug for a premise, why shouldn’t a sot
feel any damn thing he’s a mind to?”

“Ah well,” said the Curator,
“and if it’s my personal bad flavor
at issue, why I may stink with the best,
but I feel a truth, and all will.”

“Truth?” said the Auditor, starting the middle Egyptians.
“Is it a dry truth or a wet?
Can a sober man feel it, I say,
as well as a sot — who shall be nameless, I say?”

“Doubts,” said the Curator of Easy Dying.
“Doubts and dirty implications.
Haven’t I granted you all you could wish
concerning my character? I feel a thing beyond me.”

“Ha,” said the Auditor, “barely five measly million:
just as I always claimed.” And began the Etruscans,
who were finished almost at once.
“Call that a breed now?” he said.

“It’s nothing to do,” said the Curator, swigging deep
and wiping a sigh from his mouth wet,
“with what an add-man can count to.
We’re coming to countless days, I tell you.”

“So,” said the Auditor, clicking the Greco-Sicilians,
“technological unemployment! Someday when I’ve time
you must let me explore for myself
that jug of dream-juice.”

“Scoff,” said the Curator of Easy Dying.
“There’s big times coming.
I tell you these vaults won’t hold it
once it gets started.”

“And,” said the Auditor, ticking Sardinia, “what if it is
true, and the knuckles spill over the lawn
and into the ditch. Swig on, you sot, and let it.
Whatever it is, I’ll know it when I count it.”