It is a time of rust,
of stain upon the land,
this shining continent,
this realm of all my
sparkling days and waters
where I’ve lolled
in golden strands of time
and slept in seasons
soft and sonorous
as the anthems that have
swelled my heart and
held me for the asking,
all so dimmed and
darkening now,
the winds distressed
upon the fields,
the pale air frayed
with clangorous sound,
and the flowers so few
and no birds along the lane.
Yet who among us
dares confess or pray?
Who has the right to weep?
Oh, how I have longed
at the end of day to
look to the heavens and
hold the stars in my gaze
to pour out my gratitude,
and to feel them fall
like fireflies to my hand, and
to know that I have loved them,
oh how I have loved them,
and how I thirst to
hear them say say well done
thou faithful servant,
enter into the infinite joy.
I look, I look, I look
in vain, I strain to hear
the smallest sound,
but not a chipher stirs
and not a twinkle glints.
There is only the beast,
unseen, and the breath,
rising and falling on
the vacuum of my soul.
This is the song of desecration,
a lullaby turned backward,
withdrawing one by one
the remembered lumonosities,
of each incandescent hour,
retreating with the bison
over the plains, fading
to the blackend pines
and the snow that lies soiled
against the mountains.
And I was here when
this came to pass and
I bear this terrible witness
and await the raw
and ominous reckoning.
© 2010
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