To foot poetic destiny
one now and then must scuff one’s boots.
These woods will get the best of me.
How hard we’re pressed to find a tree
with roots!
Perhaps no roots have taken hold,
or else their trees are drafting fruits.
Between the sundry lines we’ve scrolled
we’ve stepped on smashed-up melons rolled
by new recruits
who wish to introduce some sport
to civilize the native brutes
they’ve heard exist through false report
and myths through which they cannot sort.
Their history disputes
the fact that there was nothing here
before they barged in with their lutes
and filled the page with noise and cheer
and pondered their celestial year
which spins as they rope off the chutes
through which they fell into this text…
which ere they came lacked figs and newts,
though now with figs and newts we’re vexed
as we await whatever’s next.
How hard to view this tree through all its roots!