Posted: June 24th, 2008, 10:46am CDT
at highest hilltop, i pause world-worn bones
and gaze below at the indigent state
where, in beggarly raiment, i reside.
a sullying fate, this circumstance of impoverishment,
from which there seems no evasion,
and insipid tales of the daily warfare of tenement life,
soar about me in stentorian dimensions—
no quiet remonstraters, these querulous folk,
no soft sighers here.
i would shield my ears, if i could,
cup my hands, in reverent imitation
of the seakeeper shell,
and listen, instead, to the whirl of my own blood ocean,
think on, rather, of the worth long declined me,
feel, preferably, as i once did when humility was not staple
and the banquet i feasted on
was the honor of my rightful gains.
form breaks and my knees land jarringly
upon the gradually changeable earth,
i make no sound, though my eyes are now fountains
and cascade salt ridden jets
upon the well travelled curvature below.
no, i dare not waste breath
to make testimonials of my baleful happenings,
the grandiose fledged circles above,
and in this, the last act of the tragedy titled,
the silent adversity,
i finally speak.
"phoenix of renewal, smite me now with your flames!
bathe clean this defective manifestation,
broken of a more knowledgeable mold,
turn me into ash, then dust,
then call forth the four winds
to scatter me across the heavens
whereupon vindication might find me
and cast me yet again."
and the phoenix does so.
i awake in a new land,
not the indigent state with its lack of prosperity,
but a sprawling land
filled to the brim with fat years constructed of palmy days
filled with towering windfalls
and bounteous returns.
