from ACT TWO

1.
 
Agamemnon's grave
Orestes
 

Orestes

What laws
can men make
to protect themselves
against their nature?
What dam build against
the force of blood?
A man might cage
a wild beast in air
as with laws
protect himself
against himself
Laws are but the names
of crimes encased
unnamed
the acts would be the same
and unremarked
What is not named
does not exist
What's crime to man
whose nature's murderous?
what might hold
the hand that stabs
from stabbing
the wife her husband kill
the son his mother?
What man desires
is to survive his nature
as if he and it
were at eternal war
So does man
divide himself
between self and self
needing the blood of one
to wash the other's blood away
Between them
he would stand the law
as one might spread
a sheet of cloth
between a knife point
and the flesh
On such delusions
are illusions built
So man dreams himself
better than he is

He approaches the grave

Here is an end
to childhood
My father's death
has called me
from a world away

He cuts a lock of hair from his head
He lays it on the grave

This is my oath
to claim what is mine
 

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