Unroll our history and,
yes, it's true:
we have lost much country
in each other,
to each other;
more than can ever be
remembered,
much less written down
(even if old Homer
was still around.)
Slashed and burned the landscape out mercilessly,
ripped the dogs from the porches
and the babies from their cribs
as we marched through,
no regrets/no remorse,
sometimes continue to,
(for this is all animals with our stripes
ever know how to do.)
But somehow,
through all our battered hands
and sutured, unbleachable selves;
through all these useless, no longer fitting feet
we have left in our wake
we have yet to surrender
an eye lash, a toe nail,
a bone, or a dawn
to any of them.
Boulder, Colorado - 11/07
