The truceless wars
among beasts, and among men, are worlds apart.
The pigeon lays down fluttering life to flash
a russet tail. The haddock becomes harp seal,
then polar bear. The squirming termite licked
from a sharp stick awakes to invent tools.
The lamb lies down within the lion, yawns
yellow-fanged, and sleeps. Life struggles to evolve
higher in us, through questioning, toward hope.
But we sow salt. We leave a ground-zero wake
of futurelessness. Take the way a life
devolves from thought to blind mouths in the dust
wasted by semiautomatic fire.
This flesh is foolscap. We think we’re so smart,
but we create nothing, nothing. Nothing.
The pigeon lays down fluttering life to flash
a russet tail. The haddock becomes harp seal,
then polar bear. The squirming termite licked
from a sharp stick awakes to invent tools.
The lamb lies down within the lion, yawns
yellow-fanged, and sleeps. Life struggles to evolve
higher in us, through questioning, toward hope.
But we sow salt. We leave a ground-zero wake
of futurelessness. Take the way a life
devolves from thought to blind mouths in the dust
wasted by semiautomatic fire.
This flesh is foolscap. We think we’re so smart,
but we create nothing, nothing. Nothing.
~ Marilyn Nelson
born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a school teacher
and a U. S. serviceman, a member of the last graduating class of Tuskegee Airmen.
She is the author or translatorof more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults
and children. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut,
Marilyn was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006, and founding director
of Soul Mountain Retreat, a writers’ colony, 2004-2010.
with thanks to https://onbeing.org
