Forgive Me

Forgive me,
For over ground much trodden
Do I venture, and yet
My childhood fidelity, as clear
And as magnetic as the communal Earth
Over which we as specks rule, corrupted,
Beckons me to sing of those without voice,
To be a reluctantly corrupted
Mouthpiece for all who grow and breathe,
But speak not.
Those welcome to share my
Dimly lit view possess:
A boot that strays,
A muddied sole,
A soul that buckles under the weight
Of thoughts spoken to those who cannot reply.
To those who share an empirical belief
In the triumph of air and muck.

Charitable are the ears of
The forever fragile inhabitants,
Perched receptively on modest twigs
That even the allied breeze
Dare not stir.
Listening too are the true owners of this land,
Whose roots exceed mind’s blind dominion,
Whose bodies tower not condescendingly,
Their heaven scraping more
Severe with each brow their branches
Unravel.

Each branch and blade and coat
And living leaf that bathes
As it is dapples and
Each deadened leaf that raises
The height of the ground on which we tread
And the Earth under which we bury our dead
And the stem and flower which we
Sever only to whore out to drip
On un-quenched minds,

And the fields and hills which
With a mere sliver, star crossed
Land and sky grow bolder, remaining
Yet co-dependent for those prodigious offspring;
Those who roam grasses, shores, roads or forever ambushed
Street must thank
Both a mother mortal and
A mother eternal,
For without both, who would ever be?