bindle, brigand, confusion, debris, dissent, dusk, dwelt, fell, disfigure, elaborate, frontier, grizzle, imperium, industrious, invisible, limb, locust, lynch, migration, oak, occupant, pantomime, passersby, perilous, refugee, repose, scoff, sluggish, sycamore, venture (A 10th grade vocabulary list assignment appearing on the chalkboard where it was spied by the visiting lecturer.)
The Pines are all felled.
The Elms are all disfigured.
The fell builders have become like locusts
industrious about the business of cutting down and covering over.
From every direction we are able to look the ground grows barren
and the water is undrinkable.
What are we going to do about this dusk
falling among the sycamores and the oaks?
Where are we to remain in repose or reluctantly
rest our bindle in all this debris?
What is at stake for us, the grizzled occupants
of this limb of the world as we
rotate in confusion among the scoffing crowds?
That they are temporarily sluggish does not
mean we cannot be lynched.
We are presently invisible because we do not pantomime
our heresy in the face of convention,
or elaborate in dance and song our total
dissent with the demands of the imperium.
If we, who once dwelt in calm and happy houses
ourselves are refugees, how long can it be
until these city dweller passersby
will be forced or driven to follow us
along this perilous migration?
By then we will have moved from this busy
and settled place of strangers.
Toward what country can we hope to venture?
Toward what home do we lead the way?
In what frontier is it possible for us
to stake a legitimate claim?
How are we to avoid becoming the
brigands and displacers we are fleeing?
This One & This One 