Navaho sands

We kept on working away
    building, we thought, for the day
        when everything would come up flowers
history swore us a promise
    and we ingenuous but honest
        considered the future ours

but while for the time conditions
    remained so unpropitious
        we kept a low profile, secure
in the thought that even now
    the cracks were beginning to show
        and soon we would even the score

so we dreamed of Navaho sands
    while time slipped through our clumsy hands
        at a pace we could not pattern
when we stepped back to check the view
    what we thought had been breaking through
        lay broken, our certainties flattened

a wall we had taken for granted
    had fallen and through the dust slanted
        a cold light illuminating
known object from angles unknown
    once again history had thrown
        a joker, a trump, re-stating

its infatuation with youth
    this, its endless and only truth
        proves there is no certain victory
the lesson we learn is that stasis
    merely invites scleroisis
        what we build – there’s the motor of history.

Dec 93