What am I running from?
Where am I going?
My feet hurt, but I don't have time to rub them,
No time to cool them in a stream.
Like a deer in a burning forest,
I bound over smoldering hotspots,
Or like an old dog dreaming,
I still have it in me to run!
Running for joy ephemeral
And then to escape
The fools who think they own me.
I can barely see the cities rushing past.
I have wings on my feet now.
My sight skims over the bones of things.
I see too much.
I smell fear . . .
I smell my own fear.
It surrounds me
Like the smoke of a never-ending fire.
I see the future like a slow-motion wave
That is carrying me forward.
My legs simulate a leap
But no need;
I am riding a wave that seems to know me.
And now I am looking around.
What message am I carrying,
From god to impotent god?
I leap from the wave,
Which is moving too slow,
Into silver-winged flight.
I am flying from mist-draped ledge to fog to cloud.
When will it be my time to rest?
Down there is not safe.
Valley after valley
War has carved a garish theater
Out of bedrock
Where there used to be a paradise.
I hear the echoes of anthems,
That merge into a drone
While sweet ballads swarm
Around my ears.
The booms of manmade thunder
Trail off behind me.
And now I hear only the wind in my ears
And the thumping of my heart
Trying to tell me something.
Good-bye.
Good-bye.
Good-bye.
I'm evanescent,
Like a falling star
About to flare in the upper atmosphere.
Where have I been?
What do I know?
How can I know anything?
I would have to stop to know
But first I must be born.
Exploding like a harmless bomb
I am rising like a phoenix
A burning bird
Recalled by flames of vision.
