|
HERE IT BEGAN
Child of yesterday, all innocent in time take up the spoon to fill with food the pillow to recline. The days are meshed together by other hands than mine. Tomorrow is the child of yesterday, but not so innocent the sun illumines the wastes and caves of the new dark age, the wind a broom to sweep the room and turn the leaves of trees that grieve whose song is lost in historical dust but listen my friend to what will begin. The wind sang as it brushed the waves and combed their lathered backs the sky was a blue never seen before of the light there was no lack. Sailor come home, and on this shore watch the deep raise up its hand what's done is done, and now the storm will the blood wash from the sand. Here it began: one step taken, one hand reaching, one branch shaken, two eyes weeping, ten regrets and fifteen reasons. An act so small and so banal so mundane at the end so thoughtless and so spiritless, impossible to mend. Bitterly they walked the plain the neck for the yoke, the hand, the chain the song that rose was like a moan from the earth to the sky, from blood and bone. Cry, blood, cry, perhaps that cry might reach the heavens or pierce the sky. Sometimes common people do uncommon things the servant saves the hand that wears the rings but God forbid that when the story's told the page be blotted by a liar bold. A gentle rain began to fall and washed the dusty wheat the golden wheat, so sweet, so sweet better than gold to the hungry man the sun comes out o'er the rich farmland the reapers bend to their given tasks and the day begins to end. |