Agrarian Age

In Spring we speak of seeds
bundled possibilities
foreseeing market days hale and fair
succulent fruit, trilling herbs,
vitalizing veggies
and all the spicey chatter of conviviality

First there was the seed
plowed under to taste Earth,
swell with water,
burst into fecund brew building
cells of chlorophyll to catch the fire,
symbiotically breathe, exchanging
death for life

Sacred seed
clothed in mystic ceremonies
deeply deified in chthonic memory
We carry the seed of our fathers,
the tears of our mothers,
the hopes and fears of our priests and lords,
over rocky terrain, in hidden caves through
ice and flood and slavering predation,
never doubting nobility of destiny
On appointed days, carefully watching solar/lunar
alignments,
our assigned labor commences. Busy as any
bird or bee, we commit seed to chosen ground
with all the love we can command
Then, off to bacchanalia, reveling in a grand scheme
promising sustenance, renewed strength, plans,
romances, unnumbered chances for pride
and glory

Thus goes the story we retell in lullaby,
in schoolyard intimacies and scholarly lies,
puffing up our little share of knowledge, magical
protection from overwhelming vastness
of mystery, shades of colors without name

Unclear on the protocol of shame, unwilling to admit
to ignorance that might unsettle carefully laid
hierarchies, unloose gates inviting chaos or worse,
we gather of our fruit for sacrifice to gods of greed and vice,
gleefully watch the rending of they who are not me

"I, too wise for such ill use, repeatedly proven
in my abuse of these ill-named foes I refuse to admit
as kin -- sinners, Lord. Surely I'll not be taken in,
not take them in. Not share the bounty of your seed,
given to the chosen."

Even in these days of polluted soil, of toil
demoted to laughable commodity,
idly watching waste stream into muddy rivers,
enjoying occasional feasts of vicarious blood,
throwing the unsanctified into the raging flood,
desperately trying to stem an unquenchable tide,
while hiding any glimpse of remorse lest shadow
presage disaster
Eating both fruit and seed, rather than part with
familiar fantasy

April 2010