you
expect
ashes sifting silently through a dead sky
the sun only a memory, or white smudge
on a gray palette, no longer
the yellow yolk promise of clear day
the golden harvest a morose, mocking recollection
the reaping, now a remnant of fierce fire
you
would like to think
we
started a conflagration whose source
could be traced to abstractions…
avarice, hate, ignorance, misunderstanding
and could, therefore, be reversed
with equally airy notions…
peace, compassion
but the clock cannot be rewound
the cinders cannot be whisked away
from the fouled fallow fields
the baby carcasses
cannot be made pink and whole again
the waters pure, and capable of great baptism
for it was not a sacred sin
that scorched our flesh, closed our throats
and made black the world of grieving color
but a mindless rock that landed
in a calm ocean, and reminded
you
we
never had control
but faded away like dinosaurs
in our final days
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 6:23 PM UTC
you
expect
ashes sifting silently through a dead sky
the sun only a memory, or white smudge
on a gray palette, no longer
the yellow yolk promise of clear day
the golden harvest a morose, mocking recollection
the reaping, now a remnant of fierce fire
you
would like to think
we
started a conflagration whose source
could be traced to abstractions…
avarice, hate, ignorance, misunderstanding
and could, therefore, be reversed
with equally airy notions…
peace, compassion
but the clock cannot be rewound
the cinders cannot be whisked away
from the fouled fallow fields
the baby carcasses
cannot be made pink and whole again
the waters pure, and capable of great baptism
for it was not a sacred sin
that scorched our flesh, closed our throats
and made black the world of grieving color
but a mindless rock that landed
in a calm ocean, and reminded
you
we
never had control
but faded away like dinosaurs
in our final days
the title an allusion to Cormac McCarthy's The Road
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