Banished
Our souls dwell as slaves,
Sweltering amidst merciless cities' rigid constrictions,
Which keep them from breaking free
From the most ruthless of all tyrants, routine —
That taskmaster who lashes us, with his cracking whip,
Pays us the wages, for our labors,
In wizened flesh, arthritic bones, broken backs and spirits.
Most of us don't know where to go, what to do, on vacation.
We spend our precious downtime staying home,
Muttering, puttering around, cluttering up the house,
Making unnecessary repairs,
Rearranging accumulated basement and attic detritus.
And if we do get away, light out, it's never for the territory
But more concrete, glass, cacophony, disillusion.
How has it come to this — our vast alienation from nature,
Our insulated, isolated, asphyxiated psyches
So daunted at the prospect of reckoning by maps, the stars,
Having to bring birch shavings and leaves to ignition
Or not eat, indeed freeze in the wilderness,
Where trees, lakes, wind, even solitude
Show no pity for those who can't read Earth's simplicities?
And so we exist, as Thoreau predicated we would,
As masses of humanity leading lives of quiet desperation,
Too confused, pusillanimous, lassitudinous,
Helpless to do anything about making crucial changes
That could pry us loose us from civilization's teats,
Let us return if not to original Eden,
At least to a piece of land where the banished can survive.
10/29/09
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