Without its Innocence

"Something like a field in Hungary, but without
its innocence. Something like a long river, short
of its bridges..."  – Brodsky, from "Ex Voto"












A glimpse of your heaven is all you get;
oak savannah, I suspect, a restored island
in among the tangled eddies of highways
where bird might still sing if you let it,
the mind's eye temporarily satisfied
that we once used to pray to a prairie,
that in long treks would not have to set aside
grievous tasks, handhelds, pixels that lie
to wander among the fencepost hickories,
the fractals of oak scrub, the nests of hawks
which froze us so our feet weren't lost,
our eyes of the oceans and pupils held
a millennia in their pure black void.
As I drive by I know nothing of my toil.
Someone out there will ask something of me,
a transaction squared, while that oak sings
and your new gods may watch over soil.