The sediment made us sick.

The wandering delta streams, the stench of endless green,

The mixing play of words, wine and bloody spray

Flowing into a slow drop of day.

Maladies hummed like reeds by the bank.

Old-young, rich-poor, pale-burnt,

All come and drink a flower dew,

The falling waves of purple-golden crash

Upon them with wolfish lion hue.

The eyes dart, the hands tremble, the mind does start

With schizoid blooming thoughts. We looked upon it,

And saw but a lively death.

We turned away and sought elsewhere.

We wandered through a desert flat,

The horizon line ‘tween spherical blue

And blinding white.

We built a pillar in the middle of everything.

We mixed our thought and speech with

ivory shafts and mannered leaves.

We sat on the plinth for days, months, years.

We stared at the circle face of the sun.

We knew nothing. Our eyes cataract, limbs thin sticks,

Our brains devoid like the desert flat we so, so praised.

We saw but a deathly life.

We turned away and sought elsewhere.