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In the Commons of Our Love | Poem

In the Commons of Our Love


For what do we weep?
Not that we do, but why!
For what! Know that and know
What is so precious in our lives!
The yellow Cadillac upended in the ditch,
Is only a yellow Cadillac
Up-ended in the Ditch!
Consider the ditch and be wise!
Note the many scattered seeds,
the trumpet notes of despairing flowers,
And the exhaust fumes still hovering in the air:
these are the end and the end of the end:
The trill of mockingbirds beyond a landfill,
The house-cat impaled on a parkway fence,
The hobbling-gait of just another war veteran,
Still hearing the soft murmur of jungle insects,
Between mortar blasts and machine-gun fire,
The far-off drone of the enemy going home to dinner;
Tell me of your madness!
Your insanity!

For what do we weep?
A man spitting on a flag?
A snake run over on the highway?
Or a bowling ball in the gutter?
A black bowling ball in a white gutter of polished wood?
An American Indian wandering dead-drunk
             on the shoulder?
The un-loved killing love at every turn?
For what do we weep?
Another chance to see a sunrise over mountains,
Or another sunset over the moiling waves of oceans?
To know the end of anything is to know
             the truest of beginnings:
That none shall live in vain!
That Nature's own shall never perish!
Not that we weep, but for what!
And the saving grace of all that clings to teach!
Or the Love Unbroken....
The only life that is and yearns to be!


- Michael W. Eliseuson