by Thomas D. Jones
After reading Richard Wilber’s “Advice to a Prophet”; this poem written in a style similar to his.
When I come, as soon I surely must, to the streets of the city,
tear-eyed from crying certain death,
proclaiming your impending fall, beseeching you
in your own name to have self-scorn,
I will not spare you words of war, their weapons and rage,
the long trails of heat that burn the mind;
your proud unflinching hearts will destroy your kind,
unable to prevent the coming age
When you shall cower from the death of the race.
Begin to dream this place without you,
the sun on fire, the leaves scarred and withered,
A stern look on the cracked stone’s face.
I speak of earth’s impending change. You conceive it not and laugh
about this silly thing, and know not to your cost
how all that lives you made decay,
the seas polluted and the vines crushed to soot.
How naive your view! You could believe it
if I told you that the yellow-tailed deer
and red mottled fox will vanish in a clearing,
the jay toss her deformed eggs and curl to die,
the great oak grow stunted and seer
and lose its hold, and every stream and river
lose its brassy brine, its shiny salmon
struck dead from poison. Wait till you exist without
the dolphin’s play or the robin’s return,
these things in which you see yourself
and turn your head away instead,
your muted call of nature forth dispelled.
You have spoken of the fear of time in the clear
mouth of courage, in which distilled
the crackling lotus of the atom killed
all you crave or wish to crave.
With great remorse I tell you the thorny rose
of your hearts shall prick, come reprimanding
your lofty life and long standing place on top
when the final pages of your chapter close.
Copyright © 2008 by Thomas D. Jones. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
After reading Richard Wilber’s “Advice to a Prophet”; this poem written in a style similar to his.
When I come, as soon I surely must, to the streets of the city,
tear-eyed from crying certain death,
proclaiming your impending fall, beseeching you
in your own name to have self-scorn,
I will not spare you words of war, their weapons and rage,
the long trails of heat that burn the mind;
your proud unflinching hearts will destroy your kind,
unable to prevent the coming age
When you shall cower from the death of the race.
Begin to dream this place without you,
the sun on fire, the leaves scarred and withered,
A stern look on the cracked stone’s face.
I speak of earth’s impending change. You conceive it not and laugh
about this silly thing, and know not to your cost
how all that lives you made decay,
the seas polluted and the vines crushed to soot.
How naive your view! You could believe it
if I told you that the yellow-tailed deer
and red mottled fox will vanish in a clearing,
the jay toss her deformed eggs and curl to die,
the great oak grow stunted and seer
and lose its hold, and every stream and river
lose its brassy brine, its shiny salmon
struck dead from poison. Wait till you exist without
the dolphin’s play or the robin’s return,
these things in which you see yourself
and turn your head away instead,
your muted call of nature forth dispelled.
You have spoken of the fear of time in the clear
mouth of courage, in which distilled
the crackling lotus of the atom killed
all you crave or wish to crave.
With great remorse I tell you the thorny rose
of your hearts shall prick, come reprimanding
your lofty life and long standing place on top
when the final pages of your chapter close.
Copyright © 2008 by Thomas D. Jones. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.