© Steve King
All rights reserved
where brown earth
and green bush meet
unrolling to empty azure all around
the cats picnic in moving shade
painting red the sands with random feasts
while
spiraling above
great birds follow where ripe scent blooms
across revealed ages
The brown guide says
‘here is where they saw it first’
the older tourist in fresh khaki nods
(gravely)
‘they were more like monkeys yes
not so much like us’
‘oh not so much like you sir’
‘no,
you will have an easy resting place
and
a crowd to please you at the last
not
a pack set running
at
the sight of you
torn
‘or
puzzling as your eyes lose their light
wondering
how this all had come to pass,
wondering
that you must have so displeased
the
angry spirits of the grass
‘dying
quick
belly
pain the last sensation
birds
nearer
nearer
as you watch
‘no,
you will have kind grasses and cool earth
and
there will be no mystery of you
and
no seeking after
for
it will all be known
plain
as may be said
between
the corners
of
your polished stone
‘even
now for you
the
birds are distant curiosities
just
artifacts like all these other things
even
now
seeing
how it all began
seeing
how it goes’
‘no sir not at all like you’
and breaching earth
the ancient rift
a piece of countenance revealed
hollow eyes
broken brow polished
from long confinement
in grinding sand
and heaving gravel bed
come again to sun
outlasting flies
and all the carrion feasts
waiting for the sands again
the shifting grave
without memory or expectation
no mercy dreams
to soften long night
or another day
another season
as much a cousin now
to all rough stones
as to the monkeys
even less to you sir
yet sir
no sir not at all
