Shorn
For Cormac McCarthy, with thanks
Somehow everything has been shorn:
the sky of its clouds, the morning of its warmth,
the day of its welcome, the traffic of its relevance.
Every sacred thing has been shorn of its referents:
religion of its mystery—the Body of Christ under neon lights,
nature of its wonder—tired lions in barren zoos,
government of its gravitas—angry men remonstrate for profit.
Every sacred thing has lost its reality.
Shorn of its referents, its context,
its relationship to anything that matters,
its only meaning is decay.
Everything has been parsed into oblivion.
I have been parsed beyond recognition.
Everything has been parsed until it’s completely atomized,
shorn of all its relationships.
Words are beacon fires across the dark
ridge of the hills, holding back, and highlighting, the night.
But the night is coming, marching like the forest
that came, at the last, for Macbeth.
The beacon fires see them until, one by one,
tired and shorn of their task, their relevance, and their reality,
they decline and wink out forever, with nobody
remaining to relight them.
Liked or faved by...
