She is old, her voice is soft;
The words swim out of her thin colourless lips
Like butterflies; blue and yellow ones, silky wings.
But there are no more butterflies, and her skin is tired, her eyes clouded
By things she no longer pretends to forget.
Her small body is wrapped in a tattered, fringed purple pink dress.
A gust of wind blows sand across the treeless plain.
Shivering, she turns away, stares at her gnarled shadow.
The sun is piercing, the sand blinding.
Of course there were signs last century;
Not omens, not faint predictions nor frenzied prophecies.
Charts, tables, graphs, clear and distinct ideas
Of the need for material salvation.
Gleaming metal held out hope, but bright green was fading;
Nature’s palette was changing, but as halcyon days darkened,
We did what we do best:
Hands outstretched, we bore the torch;
Progress. Eternal (dashed hopes!) striving;
“The American way of life is not on trial”,
But the broken hulks of grimy metal,
The uncomfortable closeness and the endless pairs of eyes
Looking through each other
Suggest otherwise.
Yet they were right in a way; humanity sitting uneasily
At the silver-cover promises of science fiction WAS different:
Oblivion would not longer be oblivious;
We analyzed while Rome burned.
She was not unaware of the irony,
Of the unnoticed slowness and the unwanted speed.
Her gossamer wrap suddenly seemed inappropriate,
But the new faces don’t care.
She remembers when the first of them trudged through the windswept pillars,
Carrying with them leather tote bags and
Guilty memories.
But what she noticed most was the woodenness, the unnatural distance.
No longer alone and palely loitering,
She took confident steps toward them,
Her hardened brown feet crushing fine stone beneath them:
Yellows, grays, browns, subdued and saddened earth tones
Making their last stand.
In the face of such desperation, warmth overwhelmed her.
Lingering bitterness flickered and melted
Gave way to euphoria (inappropriate; sigh).
Their glassy eyes humbled her, chased her out of her bubble;
These days, moods surge and evaporate,
Mirroring the ebb and flow of vagrants, families, proud people
Whose alligator-skin pants kept their chins up
As their potato-bug habits slimmed their waists,
Leaving them naked for the first time.
No, the irony is not lost on the old woman,
No longer alone and palely loitering.
Like swarming red fire ants, they march;
Exchanging flustered whispers in the brittle shells
Of once-hopeful cities.
The barrenness was not too much for some:
Gym cards in pocket, colourful cell phones
Pressed against ears;
Captains of peach metal ships, their strong sinewy hands
Firmly gripping the steering wheel, as always.
The creamy coffee-coloured sky was kind of beautiful;
They were not overly concerned.
Standing firmly, then wavering, eyes shifting
Nervously, she had nothing to say to them.
Months (is it years?) later, coexistence;
The earth still produces in this soon-to-be wasteland,
But the fruits are more like hand-squeezed lemon pulp,
And the hands are tired, the will arthritic.
Entropy has eroded everything,
And those with the special comfort of transcendence
Tap their feet uncomfortably and check their watches.
The old woman is reminded
That phoenix rise from ashes, that fleeting feeling,
The broken pieces of a child’s kaleidoscope, can be re-focused,
Built up on turtles’ backs if need be;
And so she looks them in the eyes, each one of them;
She does not deny the electricity; pink smoke rises, radiant.
And she does what we do best: from failing hands
She bears the torch to toothy grins.
A spot of blue shines through; the dew sparkles.
« return.