Of Loss and Victory, of Poverty and Wealth

Of Loss and Victory, of Poverty and Wealth

It is a curious tree of paths
we take to justify the place we are,
the bold and sacrificial leap to insecurity--
one step to left or right to override
our common quest for righteousness,
for unknown breathless wonder far ahead.

Higher on the climb, the codicils
to all the monuments of history,
bravura songs of loyalty that we were taught
amid the hands on hearts,
the festive manifests we sang
before the home team
flashed upon the scene.

Looking down, we never knew
that we were lost before the game began...
that we were fed upon decay,
the victors' bounty measured in its septic glory
only at the birth of consciousness...too late,
too late to claim the prize
beyond a price called love.

At the height, the branches will dissemble,
tremble at the tentative alighting
of the dove. They are tender infants,
prone to alarm beneath the laurels of success.
And it is not for us to know
their sheer audacity to grow
beyond the riches of the earth
into the skies of peace.
~