We were lost
At the promise of a New World.
Untamed vastness begging name and structure,
Forged to plow and steel structure:
The height of empire yoked to the backs of the suffering.
Changes, the oceans rise.
Hot, the sun burns,
Baking bricks of broad earth,
Little spouts, little children
Thirst:
The oceans rise.
Tomorrow is the sunrise,
Tomorrow is a new day
A way to grow, and expand
Urban sprawl,
Cramped caged lonely anonymous
Anyone, anywhere, anything
Androgynous, homogenous,
Banal and tame
Dashed with violence:
The era of imprisonment.
Whenever did a dream matter
More than in an empty heart hardened
By exposure
To the myth of rugged self-reliance:
Spartan wealth.
Mental-sane,
Man-made, structured fruits,
Skies-scraped,
Babies raped, perverse thought and art
Entertains enraged
Caged ape-children
Given the world
And raise her through
Un-checked waste.
Golden past, unarticulated
In manic minds
Interrupted by scores of conveniences
Designed to diminish time
And consume silence.
Hands diminished by misuse,
Life-less limbs pruned by hours of abuse,
Frugal to a fault the unspent challenges
To grow around the unexpressed.
A sacred shrine to poverty:
The horn of plenty,
A bone picked clean,
The city.
How through the hurling night
The wraiths of their beings
Scream:
Night terrors.
The lonely buds of spring
Develop bravely
against the shock of danger.
~Anna Chlewicki Lightfoot