Spirits Out For Harvest

Flowers invinsibly traded

Lie disbanded

Underneath crumb cake coffe tables

Where the birds have forgotten

To collect their nectar



I have begun

Hiding my face in shadows

To appear as a villain

So trustworthy people are forced

To look closely for any goodness from me



Within these shadows

Where the broken stems rest

And the discarded feathers are kept

The minds dials and temperature gauges

Are stuck on yesterday's readings



This sad era is ending

-In tune with the decades-

Here, where we dared to cross

The current's meager broth

In a little boat guided by broken oars



No one moved against the wind

Fearing the fish bodies that floated

About our moat

Would slow our progression

Into a singular stagnation



Those that picked up the stone

Too early, or too late

May have forgotten

Of it's rough edges

And purely cold center



No one believes

In the existence of honesty anymore



The shadows that hide my better features

Are the skeletons of a closet

I cleansed long ago



If this dust

Or if this decrepit reasoning

Is of any worth or value



If the road

We walk on continues onward

With it's cracks and divets



If there is hope

Even only in simple things



If gods could communicate

Without disfranchising each other



If the storm on the ocean

Could bring moisture to parched land



And if the tractors,

And plow

Could extend a never-ending line

Of resolution with

Or without forgiveness



It would need to be exchanged

For any other item of the least

Bit of value



But who has ever traded

The miles they previously traveled

For the miles they hope to travel?



Your destination

Can never be bought, nor sold,

Nor traded

-And the soles of your shoes

Only tell half of the story

Of where you have traveled-



The other half

May be written, or not-

In the creaks of joints

And weariness of eyes



But isn't it worthwhile

To live in an ugly world

Than to never live at all?



"HA!"



Screamed the trillionaires

As their retirements

And bank trusts

Bite the dust



"Tell that to the weary souls

That hunt all night

For a loaf of bread

And single slice of meat."



"But I am one of them."



I answer.



"The wild dogs

And porcelaine birds

Know my name.

For I am everywhere-

Welcome both in your solitude

And in their exposed wilderness."



The trillionaires

Were not pacified

With this kind of reasoning-

As they set out

To plot gravesites

In which to bury their Trusts

Forever



And the birds that wrangled

Small fortune from manured lawns,

And the dogs that saw their wilderness

Of canyons shrink and disapear

Becoming miniscule ponds

And polluted lagoons

Where rotten fish heads

Could never seek out

The spirits of harvest again-



All still roamed, a little weary,

A little shallow, cracked but not broken-

Watching the walls that rested

On the foundations they had helped build

Sink a little lower into the mud-

That deep, rich plaque of earth

That is continually hungry

And eternally unforgiving.