Last Two Holy Sonnets

Exchange this paradise for boundless concrete,

Exchange this wilderness for endless ghetto,

Put junkbone devastation on a meadow,

And want, where once creation was complete,

And waste, of all the finite sums of breath,

False balance of the soil’s promise, replete

And bounteous; or could the cock be free,

Or could the war be won without his death,

Or houses & books existing with forests intact,

Or could the love be full without the jealousy,

Or thirst or hunger slaked with immortality,

Our lives entire without the slightest impact.

Could we do well what still we will do well,

Or life or health or sacrifice for fuel?

On trains across the Rockies comes a man

Who knows the blue lakes as he knows the divine,

And next to obese theists, takes bread & wine,

He will profess since all the hours began,

Till those who pray to know the ample rapturings

Will concentrate on snowflakes in the sunshine,

Till those who preach of martial glory can

Enlist their zeal towards imaginary capturings;

And he will speak of glowings on the surface,

And he will rhyme in every holy language,

And he will find a seed whose roots will wage

The ephemeral crusade to sing in her space.

This consummation then he will consume

When gold & raining peace together bloom.