Poem: The Course Of Empire

You called it savage

I called it paradise

Lilac clouds reached 

For the tips of the pines

We sheltered in their branches

And foraged for wild delicacies

Prometheus came and went and then 

Red-gold fires blazed in stone theaters

And the land still gave forth what it could

But we tried to coax out more and more and more

We docked our canoes on the shores of the channel

And soon they were starting to look more like triremes

We paraded over lofty bridges and decked ourselves in silk and gold 

We built aqueducts and cordoned off little circles of wildness in terracotta cradles

So they wouldn’t be ousted by the tide of marble sweeping over the bustling hills

We raised our temples to the sky, we pushed away the clouds

And one day they came down and beheaded all our statues

We killed each other for sport, but we condemned the storm

When she ripped people’s lives from their chests

And we took out our blinding rage on each other 

Because we couldn’t lash out at the odious sky 

When it was all over not a human soul was left

Pillars left to crumble in a mossy embrace

Lands left to heal from the rape of their fruit

Clouds hang low over tranquil waters

The world is back at equilibrium

You call it desolation

I call it freedom