So It Is

Words said with eyes closed
pay out in a line straight as true.

How else know the city lies far
from the country, dirt’s flesh, and bone
the earth’s. Far off lie the castles.

For the rich the money makers
make money from the money of the rich.
Camels prepare them for the needles’ eyes.
A needle sees them through: how some make it.

Children feeling doomed are most to be feared.
Locked in, locked out, there is no in-between,
sorrows, ecstasies frozen at the planet’s poles.
The young grow old too quickly to know why
those who called them holy wracked them with fear.

These words fell from a blind tongue. Both eyes shut
could not see where they were to take them back.
So it is. Ice melts, seas rise, blizzards rip
the globe until Earth’s turning stops.
Fathers enslaving mothers with children,
children killing children–all God’s phantoms.

(31 October 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander