Wither

This is what it came to: staring at the ground, mind blank, tongue idle, hands wrung. What now, what now, do we begin again? Thoughts already half-dissolved before they’ve quite emerged.

The seed we had is in the ground, the fruit it bore
Was taken, no surprise, the tenant farmer’s heartbreak,
The things you make are not your own

So history lumbers on, a glee-drunk toddler careening from foot to pudgy foot, awed by its own motion, a slug’s trail of half-chewed zwieback and applesauce on every surface it touches, as it goes nowhere, charming everyone all the same.