The Watery Dead

Before the walls and towers were built,

or the skyscrapers rose in dark steel,

and guns with sparking powder kept the monsters away,

there was the thunder and the rain.

When one raindrop speaks so do the dust and the stars.

Every clear particle is forged in the hidden fire of the clouds

that illuminate in random darts and blotches.

It hit the prehistoric beasts we covet in skeletons ,

running down there hides and fangs, falling down to the earth

unspoiled and free of highways and roads.

It hit the ashes of Pompeii rolling.

It hit the shields in Caesar's legions marching bronze.

It hit the bayonets of the English,,

and cleaned Attila's wounds.

It scared Virginia Woolf and mused Robert Frost,

categorized Kubrick and depressed O'Connor.

It waits for all creators, that infinite metaphor,

motif, image, all the literary jargon

Like a devil hidden in the mist,

I'll make it's form myself,

and it'll own me, sell me, a natural profiteer.

And it will endure and outlast me

till I'm dead inside.