11.6.06

I've filled my mouth with blades of grass that now begin to rust,I've seen the rugged mountains warp the earth and scrape the sky,
The winds of plains have blown around and caked my eyes with dust,
Yet people—I said people, now—have made me cry, "Unjust!"
(And still, I have not ever stopped to ask or wonder why).

I built my houses out of clay, but now not one still stands.
Standing here in fields of red, I know why they have failed:
A home does not exist without the work of human hands,
And a structure built on man's goodwill is built on shifting sands.
Pyramids of human form—what was it they entailed?

Our weak attempts at locomotion,
Like old trains long since derailed,
Sink now in the junkyard ocean,
Monuments to efforts failed.

I scoop a sordid sample from the ancient compost heap
And feel with earthen fingertips the fruits of dead men's thoughts,
Wafting forth with sodden scents, ideas that did not keep.
Now reflects my fearful mind on things the living reap,
And I know that my heart joins all the others as it rots.

I lie here in a battlefield where once our children played
And pluck a lonely daffodil from earth so scorched and dry.
The passersby are not surprised at me, prostrate, dismayed,
As I survey our inborn flaws so clearly here displayed
(And dying here at last, I stop to ask and wonder why).