O splendid is our reach for the heavens;
debris.
Buying the breath of this arid day;
towering city murdered in stillness,
loyal fortitude tainted of liberty;
capitalism’s flay.
War and dying- in and `round what may-
country, continent, world;
about us are people smiling
with stolen power.
There are mountains and rivers
maligned with refuse,
Oceans dipping under oily slag,
Forest, tender box refuge,
creatures slicked with industry,
children hungry and slaughtered,
people trampled- freedom's thirst
enslaving them in stampede.
O! Beautiful for spacious skies
Moving ravenous cloud,
cosmos yearning to be freed,
floating without coward’s night,
a mockery of this our reverie.
Honor, if you will, the ground,
pay tribute in towering light,
not custody in human race as slave,
nor ownership of souls shelved
in empirical might.
O! Splendid is our reach for the heavens;
debris.
Best we first erect a tower within ourselves.
mrp
