St. Augustine Reads to Himself

The voice you hear is not your own, renowned,
Or sounded. It is an echo announced
In no pronounced tones, old--ancient--and lonely.
Really, such beauty should be empty
Of meaning; instead, it is an aggregate and agile,
Breathing. Blow in it and it ignites in I's
And innuendoes, implied. Pull it into place--
But it resists and snaps like science,
Fast to reason, imagined but lacking an image,
All synecdoche and no bones, no whom,
All an ode, all libation, the small song
In praise of silently reading singing.