I’ve been trying to fix this poem for upward of two years now, but without success. I’m afraid at this point it’s just going to have to stand as it is. I don’t hate it... I just wish it were a little more cohesive. That’s the devilish thing about the terzanelle: it’s absolutely exquisite if you can get it right, but most of the time, you can’t.

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Destiny

What fates await the Seven of the Endless I have seen,
In the aging pages, heavy, weighing doom upon my hands;
But I cannot alter what is writ; it has already been:

Caught in glass their hours run out, cascading count their measured sands.
Fragile patterns, broken stitches, watch them tremble as they weave,
In the aging pages, heavy, weighing doom upon my hands.

Were I able, I would wish, like them, to wonder, hope, believe –
But there is no Hope for Destiny, for I can count their graves.
Fragile patterns, broken stitches, watch them tremble as they weave

Down the paths of Fortune’s garden and the stones which sorrow paves.
By the shackles of my wisdom I am bound to read them there,
But there is no Hope for Destiny, for I can count their graves,

Through the fall of hell, the Dreamlord’s doom, when Death will know Despair.
In the aging pages, heavy, weighing doom upon my hands,
By the shackles of my wisdom I am bound to read them there;

How I long to turn the final leaf, for then I’ll understand.
But I cannot alter what is writ; it has already been,
In the aging pages, heavy, weighing doom upon my hands.

Yes, what fates await the Seven of the Endless I have seen:
Our time is short; the furies weave and snip our fraying strands.