close your eyes and collect your heart,
feel the pricks and pains and discomforts of your body
the touch of your machine made clothes, smell far distant
the sweat of the Bangladeshi worker, straighten your spine,
breathe the heavy air. eyes now open,
direct your gaze at the concrete before you,
look for a breath and a half.
eyes shut, review the landscape in your heart:
sidewalk and building, road and powerlines, trees
rooted under the asphalt, straining. move the clock forward,
see the years pass, new oceans soon lapping at less distant shores,
the asphalt cracks, the sparrows take to the fields,
every edifice totters, o bring us the little foxes,
your body and your civilization a-mouldering in the grave,
tattered powerlines flying in the wind
rags tied at an unholy tomb.
these trees tumble, rot, and new trees grow,
the foxes remain but the vineyard is gone,
and muscadines tangle the new trees.
feel your bones and the built up bones of this world below
crumble to dust, taste the death dew heavy,
let your heart feel I and all my works will perish.
still the new trees grow