%
% Teleology
%
% Reuben Thomas
%
% Originally TELEOLOG.012
% Typeset 18/12/00; updated notes 20/12/00; used my poem package
% 21/12/00; made HeVeA-friendly 11/2/02
%


\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage{a4,babel,palatino}
\usepackage[nonotes]{poem}

\pagestyle{empty}


\begin{document}
\begin{poem}
\title{Teleology}
\stanza*
Beyond the shoreless ocean, above the empty sky, \\
What wonders do we look for, or what hope to descry? \\
We say we seek an Answer, the great eternal Truth; \\
It is in age our furnace, the fiery brand of youth. \\
This longing, it sustains us, but, once met our desire, \\
For what would we now hunger; what else would feed our fire? \\
Or would we lapse insipid, into a vacant cell; \\
Having lost our dreams, would crouch in self-begotten hell? \\
The truth is simply stated, and no great answers hide \\
At path's end, for means only does Ithaca provide. \\
But Way and Life this world is, there is no Truth to find; \\
To this joyous tragedy we learn our hearts to bind. \\

\author{Reuben Thomas}
\poemdate{Abingdon 23rd-24th/27th December 1991}
\end{poem}
\begin{notes}
  This was inspired by Kavafy's \emph{Ithaca}, which John Durran once
  read in Preces (I think some time before I wrote the poem). Some
  years later, I told Lina about the poem I remembered, and she
  recognised it. This was just before another Christmas (probably
  1996), and coincidentally I happened to find a volume of Kavafy
  while browsing through Grandma and Gramps's books that Christmas.
  The year I wrote it I left a draft in Gramps's rough paper pile, and
  he asked me about it, concerned, because he thought it sounded
  rather pessimistic.
\end{notes}
\end{document}
