I sort of hate the fact that I can't get the linked piece to load. Suggestions?
The "Full Page" link worked for me, Thorn.
I'm afraid that linear indentation has been lost.
The Slacker Apologizes
"An artist is a philistine despite himself, a patriotic moralist with a bad conscience. When his art shouts 'beauty,' his conscience shouts 'duty!' Solution unsatisfactory." — The Manndelbaum Chronicles
We trees were chopping down the monsters in the
Street to count their rings.
WHO BLEST OUR WAR? The oak invoked: "Within Thee
Crush, Mother, quakingly these red-sapped things
Whose harrowings
Wrong Thy clean dirt. Kill, kill all alien kings."
Crowned by black moss or by obscener yellow,
The flowerless monsters stood
On soil-blaspheming asphalt. How they'd bellow
Each time we hacked them—just as if their crude
Numb root-pairs could
Feel feeling. O Goddess, the glory of being wood!
Then games of piece. WHO WAS THE POET? I!
I was the willow lyre.
Even the oak was silent; melody
Maddened whole meadows like a forest-fire
To hear my choir
Of leaves beat, beat, and beat upon each wire
Of winds I tamed and tuned so artfully
It seemed an artless game.
You! weed back there!, don't think I didn't see
You wawning. Bored? Well, try to do the same!
What? Suddenly lame?
Come, come, step up and sing—or wither in shame.
Then crooned the crass young weed: "Last night my stamen
Could hear her pistil sigh.
Though far the garden that her petals flame in,
We touched in dreams the hour that bee flew by.
My pollen's shy
Deep nuzzling tells her: weeds must love or die.
Fools. How they cheered. But wait, I set them right:
"Verse, verse, not poetry.
Jingles for jungles: grosser groves delight
In honey; but educated tastes decree
Austerity.
True art is bitter, but true art sets free.
"True art, how can I serve thee half enough?
Had I a thousand sprays
And every spray a thousand sprigs, they'd sough
For beauty, beauty, beauty all their days—
And still not praise
Not half the whirlwind-wonder of thy ways."
At this the oak, our captain, roared me down:
"Mere beauty wilts the will.
Why are we here? To sing and play the clown?"
The forest answered: "We are here to kill."
… While monsters still
Defile thy loam, while trees know right from wrong,
Forgive me, Mother, for the guilt of song.
Or sure what Stranded in Lubbock said.
No, actually that's a big help, nosflow, thanks. For some reason, both "Full Page" and "PDF" only worked once.
Ents ents ents ents....
Thanks, nosflow. I was able to get it to work when I tried again, but it's nice having it in one place. There are a lot of lines here I like plus the overall piece. But yes, ents. "WHO BLEST OUR WAR?" is going in my personal lexicon.
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A couple of deer just strolled sedately past my window, walking down the driveway a mere 20 feet away. 6 or 7" of snow at the moment, no sign of (human) movement anywhere outside. A glance at the front yard shows that they paced across the yard casually from the neighbor's yard across the way. They seem pretty satisfied with the state of affairs.
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