Rubaiyat: respectfully yours

I have learnt yours off by heart and recited

each one of them outside and inside my head
till the domes of skulls were shaped with their echoes
and spines curved to hold the words they said

Your moving finger has crept down centuries

touched pawns and queens, and great pens and keys
and touched me too sitting in the darkness
with my hair lifting slightly in the breeze

Then there are those, whose delicate rubaiyat

I forget, at least, can’t recall the details of their art
but they get mixed in with the mortar of life
and they are in the paving of the path.

And sometimes I’m caught quite unawares

as to what I read, whether it’s yours or theirs
all words seem to blend in at the source
into one great poem, echoing everywhere.