What are we running from?
Where are
we going?
My feet hurt, but I don't
have time to rub them
Or cool them in a stream.
Like a deer,
Leaping old barbed wire, and
new
I bound over smoldering
fires
Hotspots,
Always cautious, always
anxious for the herd.
I'm like an old dog
Showing that I still have
it in me
To run and run and run.
Always, always away.
I can barely see the city
rushing past.
I have wings on my feet.
My sight skims over the
bones of things.
I see too much.
I smell the fear . . .
But I keep running.
I see the future like a
slow-motion wave
Before which I am flying,
Before the crash and foam.
What message am I
carrying
From god to impotent god?
What silver-winged flight
have I achieved
Leaping from mist-draped ledge
to fog to cloud?
And when will it be my time
to rest?
Down there is another valley
Where war has carved a
theater
Out of bedrock
Where there used to be a
paradise.
I hear the echoes of anthems,
The booms of manmade
thunder
Trailing off far behind
me.
And now I hear only the
wind in my ears.
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.
Exploding like a harmless
bomb
I am rising like a
phoenix
Or a firebird
Born from flames, flying.
