Bomb in a Bottle

Bomb in a Bottle

Boy, were we wrong--caught a bomb in a bottle.

Friends, we really, really bought this one; we thought we’d brought

that long-sought cession forward; that peace could be wrought of violence.

But this power…so tremendous. We fought to cease to see.

Look at us now: children torn by our tether, foreseeing a future

void of forests, geysers and streams; shot with craters, fraught with screams,

with wretches, orphans, and radium dreams. Dispatched as a people,

disowned, detached together. Seekers of solutions,

or butchers born are we? Ruthless raiders, raptors of a feather.

Take my hands, left and right. Let’s trash all we know;

streets and lights and planes and gates, politics and points of view,

policies, peckerwoods, preachers and pet persuasions.

Dickheads and demonstrations. Doctors and doomsayers. Boys in Blue.

Let’s let life’s lessons lead us through,

get found again and be lost anew.

Raceless in the sun, faceless through the fields we’ll run, premise and pale behind us.

We’ll dance in the wood like a good people should; no bearers of blues will find us.

We’ll strip off our clothes, embrace and suppose that that river of woes never was.

Then shamelessly sharing a natural buzz, we’ll clench up inside,

drop to our knees, swallow our pride, throw back our heads and cry:

“Oh, Mother Earth, forgive us! We were babes, we were blind.

“We stumbled on the summit, we stung and knew not why.

“Wake and take us back again, warm within your womb again,

“to reap the golden sleep of men, to rise and rub our eyes again,

"to lend ourselves to something more than living;

"giving God a place again, grown apart from self and sin.

"O Grace, begin! Good Mother, let us in."

Take my hands, hold on tight. Let's preserve what we've learned:

pools and shade and glens and streams, mist and mint and mushrooms too,

sweet hemp and sun, music and celebrations.

Spacewalks and special occasions. Poets and peacemakers. Babes and brew.

Our one course remains: we’ve shaken our reins,

and taken the way of seekers. Let's let life's lessons lead us true,

get lost again and be born anew.