What do we say in the twilight
of a republic? Roman walls fell
into darkness as emperors fiddled
with extravagance, confident
eternity comes to those who wait.
We are a nation doomed
to repeat mistakes of dead
immortals — blinded by hindsight,
history befalls us.
We settled on the west
in the footsteps of Lewis, Clark,
and the nameless natives
that did all the work crossing a continent
with waterspout wishes
and frontier fancies of flight.
We did no actual walking,
our footprint carbon high above
the vast swaths they once explored
with wonder and virgin eyes
mere white noise
for my well-earned nap.
We discovered the concrete forest
journeying on another trolley
discovering the treasures hidden
in Chinatown’s claustrophobic stores
before returning home,
our honeymoon jaunt at an end.
History shines here, filtered
through the trees and mixing
with the sunlight that warms our
necks just as it did
years ago creating a dense fog
we’ve almost stopped
noticing. We live in its shadow
just as surely as they did,
though the shadows play longer,
and while we may chose to turn our
heads and ignore the brown leaves
come winter, we will depend
on its cover
or worse, hide in the mists,
a refuse from cold breezes
stirring up again.
