They rode out, first in wagons and then in Harleys,
across the land, across the western plain,
poured wine from rusted flagons for dears and darlings,
threw their aching limbs upon a plotted terrain.
At nightfall the choristers faced the ridge,
sang odes to the dreamer's urn and the draftsman’s cup.
The crescendos were spread in a terrace of waves.
But the highs and lows fell out at the bridge –
halves of a freedom to which they did not add up.
And the master transposed their hymns on empty staves.
I left the church as the bells went ringing
over tramps and preachers long at rest in their graves.
And later we set up amps and bleachers, singing
anthems into a stadium of stares
of a land that was never ours and never theirs.
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