Unlearned

I am
sorry for our kind, now, today -
with our restlessness our
dizzy heads our
wayward way - beguiled
and tantalised by dreams of
money and big houses, lavish
gifts and impressions, making
others wide-eyed.   Gone

is the concentrated movement of
co-ordinated hand and eye - the
important boring of a steady hole in
flint or stone, for, by that
we live or die.   No more the
stolidness of stone, time-hardy
with no wearing down, reliable
and safe as houses from
the elements that kill.

Gone the drinking time
of skin and eyes to feel
the glitter on the water, high cloud
rising, patience to sit and
wait for the stone that keeps us
to speak, and the quiet

pride of body-labour as our
fruits grow and a field of
corn waves in the sun - time
for ripening bellies, the

stitching of skin, the
hand-grasp and warm, eyes
gleaming in the fitful fire -
silence as the wind bellows
at the stone and fingers
hollows in the wall.

I am sorry for our kind -
our rushing days our
shallownesses - like children
we reach for a flicking
screen and push plastic
buttons in the corner that
have us mesmerised
	and want to be
	what we are not
eternally thirsty for things
that cannot feed.   We endanger
ourselves with
our hollow need.

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