What are we running from?
Where are we going?
My feet hurt, but I don’t have time to rub them
Or cool them in a stream.
Like a deer,
Leaping old barbed wire, and new
I bound over smoldering fires
Hotspots,
Always cautious, always anxious for the herd.
I’m like an old dog
Showing that I still have it in me
To run and run and run.
Always, always away.
I can barely see the city rushing past.
I have wings on my feet.
My sight skims over the bones of things.
I see too much.
I smell the fear . . .
But I keep running.
I see the future like a slow-motion wave
Before which I am flying,
Before the crash and foam.
What message am I carrying
From god to impotent god?
What silver-winged flight have I achieved
Leaping from mist-draped ledge to fog to cloud?
And when will it be my time to rest?
Down there is another valley
Where war has carved a theater
Out of bedrock
Where there used to be a paradise.
I hear the echoes of anthems,
The booms of manmade thunder
Trailing off far behind me.
And now I hear only the wind in my ears.
I’m evanescent,
Like a falling star
About to flare in the upper atmosphere.
Where have I been?
What do I know?
How can I know anything?
I would have to stop to know.
Exploding like a harmless bomb
I am rising like a phoenix
Or a firebird
Born from flames, flying.
—Gary Lindorff