Petrarch says
All history
Is praise of Rome
And every
Colonising
European power
Dreams its way
Back to some
Trojan survivor
To drink of that
Enchanted well
Of power and might
Today we remember
What the Romans
Would do to trees
Of course
They didn't really fashion
Well made crosses
Just to plant
The dead wood
Back in the soil
Rather, they
Nailed a plank crossways
To a living trunk
They used
The aged creature
As scaffold
On which
To maim
The restrained limbs
Of some
Spirited
Enslaved person
Of some
Collector of herbs
And tales
Of some
Colonised
Rebel of the land
Of some
Person reduced
To what?
Zoe nailed
To Zoe
In a
Hellish spectacle
Of bios
Against all life
Such is
History
As praise of Rome
Such is
History
As power and might
The trees know
What is done
To messianic life
Messiahs know
What is done
To the trees
Someday
The trees
Will clap their hands
This fan-boy happened to be online the moment this gem landed. I'd like everyone I know to read this---to be invited to grieve this. Thank you, thank you, thank you David Benjamin Blower.
Dear David, I woke up feeling miserable. I know its that time of year again where it feels that misery is okay. Your poem helped me to enter the misery space more consciously. And to relate it to the present. Thank you.