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In the oldest story it says
in the wild place, of river mud
of silence, and emptiness
she built him.
and his mouth knew no language
only water, and the beasts
thronged thick along side him,
a mute company of birds, and gazelles.

a trapper, looking up
saw him, wild and covered in hair
his eyes black as a dog's
as deer, and mindlessly delicate
he drank from the stream,

in a brick city, his not yet brother
weary with a crown, with a people,
weary of history and the machinery of war,

They sent, that priestess, that whore
to divorce him from the beasts,
for we are a filthy river, a muddy pool
of language, of wealth and poverty, of lies

and yet it will be he, to die
and the king is the nation,to see the death
as we have seen it

to startle us into eternity
though the snake tricked us into death


and this is a story, told in every city
every where the streetlights cast their circle
and the water pools in the leaves in the dark,
to catch the moon

there was once a race of men, small as pygmys,
terrible giants of ice, of fire
blue with woad, with feathers in their hair
they lived in the barren places,
in the wood where it is darkest
below the bridge, in the hedgerow
bright eyes in the woods, false lights in the dark

we came, with bright iron
we came with roads, and law and churchbells
and captured them, green children and hairy men
cowboys and indians, radio antenna
knackers in the mines deep delving

because we know there must be men without language, without meaning
free of god and hell, free of law and terror, naked, new
eyes black as cave dark, silent and empty and clean

the filthy clatter of our heads assure us it is so