ii. Once We Were One

Once my people

we were one.

 

We felt our skins held together

and never apart. What borders did we not cross?

 But fifty miles away from the Highlife days of that March

we see with blinding sight. Just fifty miles away……….

 

and we march on heels on the Main Street

sing sin and dance like chickens in garbage pails.

 

How sweet is the dream-salt we taste

with our swollen lips. My, my, my……

Can we rage against the dying light,

bend double to gather what we lost in our fields of praise?

 

Nothing we cared for when the moon was rising

in the fields of praise is honored by the foxes.

I’m drunk with fatigue in these clumsy helmets.

I’m plunged in a gutter, choking, drowning

and these white eyes are writhing in my face.

 

You saw them bearing the farm away though

they heard us sang in our chains like wailing whales.

Oh, my, my, my…………….

Once, sweet was the wine of one flesh in the dead fields of praise

and we drank and drank.

Where are these now?