The Moon and Fist
The cold moon at last bears a fruit: it is a photograph.
And suddenly cities of children chant,
"All the cities of clouds and sea, all nations and all continents, all circuits of planes, all shipping lanes, all ocean and all mountains, all fists and words, all shadow and light, each day and night: look, see how they are part of the same element - the One World of Earth.
"Humans, quit your daily shout, and now simply ask: what have we all been squabbling about? Dissecting such a thing with a line, drawn like a dream on a map, warring over what is yours or what is mine, or giving our lives to some other trap. What?
"Hush now! Your answers speak no more than the silent moon. So instead picture life to my tune: the earth is one, as simple as the sun, so forget the dark and complex dreams of night, and drum out with me the words we know to be right: love and freedom, each day all day long, as simple and true as the sea is blue."
And I, Fist, answer:
"Such a song is not for me. The world is not just what you see. Picture invisible spirals of the Air, lifting a skirt on a street, rummaging such neat hair, feeding the trees, and the tree-slayers, displacing a piece of office paper - an invoice gets lost, and a worker gets sacked by the boss - or picture it rotting the corpses of the caesars, filtering through the earth, performing more invisivle work. Or, or, or.
"Cities of children, the life of air comes only to some. Your simplicities are your own loss, not the flags of a battle to be won. Without such a gloss, I still go on.
"And, yet, Air: The suffocated ones, Air, do not bring me their ghosts, as cold and grey as the moon, asking me what with my life I have done. I do not wish to confess. I do not wish to say, today, only this.
And suddenly cities of children chant,
"All the cities of clouds and sea, all nations and all continents, all circuits of planes, all shipping lanes, all ocean and all mountains, all fists and words, all shadow and light, each day and night: look, see how they are part of the same element - the One World of Earth.
"Humans, quit your daily shout, and now simply ask: what have we all been squabbling about? Dissecting such a thing with a line, drawn like a dream on a map, warring over what is yours or what is mine, or giving our lives to some other trap. What?
"Hush now! Your answers speak no more than the silent moon. So instead picture life to my tune: the earth is one, as simple as the sun, so forget the dark and complex dreams of night, and drum out with me the words we know to be right: love and freedom, each day all day long, as simple and true as the sea is blue."
And I, Fist, answer:
"Such a song is not for me. The world is not just what you see. Picture invisible spirals of the Air, lifting a skirt on a street, rummaging such neat hair, feeding the trees, and the tree-slayers, displacing a piece of office paper - an invoice gets lost, and a worker gets sacked by the boss - or picture it rotting the corpses of the caesars, filtering through the earth, performing more invisivle work. Or, or, or.
"Cities of children, the life of air comes only to some. Your simplicities are your own loss, not the flags of a battle to be won. Without such a gloss, I still go on.
"And, yet, Air: The suffocated ones, Air, do not bring me their ghosts, as cold and grey as the moon, asking me what with my life I have done. I do not wish to confess. I do not wish to say, today, only this.
posted by Fist at 17:16
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