Poem: Not So Great

 

Not So Great

 

the fathers invoked a heraldry of the linear,

eschewing the lessons of Creation.

the fathers crammed nighttime into a blue box

of corralled stars.

 

blood doesn’t flow so straight, nor ivory. 

beware those tongues and teeth.

beware the lunge below the glint of the square cyclops eye.

 

beware the cubic tyrannosaur of the-many-into-one.

 

imagine

if the whitewashed blood and fangs and dark gleams,

and the shallow sharp bursting bombs of flare,

fell into a chastened pile.

 

all those vectors of Manifest Destiny

humbled to salute the coils of riverbanks,

and the curled claws of wild willow roots.

 

would the dark deeds eventually decay

through the soil toward those killed in their name? 

would the symbolism then

form a sediment of eternal regret?

 

would it even, finally, flower a decent destiny?

surrender to a supple, graceful peace

its indivisible bars?

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