Poetry

LAND WON

by Walter Boswell
03/02/19
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Land Won (Prophecy Return)

                         It is not the prophet,

but the Lord who now bring charges against the financiers,

                                the realtors, and the constructionists,

who by their greed and corruption foreplay            bid,

                “develop here, develop there,

                                destroy here, destroy there;

                tear this down, build this up;"

                take from the hurting people, to give the unfeeling – 

who have long since met behind closed doors,

                                                behind zoning boards,

                to let steal from the poor and the ancient,

                to change the bounds of future life and holdings …

Whilst once their plans are enacted, done tightly spent,

                                at the rich price of a nature lost,

                they themselves move farther on:

                rewarded in fresh country, a new beach,

or another tranquility isle,

                                for pleasantly scarring the rest’s homely skin.

But the land is mine, says the Lord:

the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,

                and all the living things that move on the earth;

                you have only that dominion

                                over which I have chosen to give you.

To those who ravage trees and strip creatures,

                who steal and decimate the soil,

                who take early and broadly

whatever thins the bounty of forever,

                                                the Lord says,

                                your own skins shall be narrow wrung,

                                your souls upturned      under the Creator’s plow,

                                until the Land of natural promise

                                                finds its Sabbath again.

Divorce

A sleeplessness, a hunger, an unsettled controversy –

excuses only,        for fears and empty kitchen tables.

                                Who’s to care now anyway?

                The temptation is to redeem the sustainable:

                                                when tempers arise,

remove everlasting rings having only hurt around the finger.

In a nonchalance of weeding

                and a scarcity of purified sprinkling,

                                encourage only longsuffering,

                with nothing left but patient stems

and these folded leaves of love.

What childhood tolls shall mark our credits now

                or punch in our industrial days of devotion?

By force of will, for lack of honor,

                no longer to ride this way unchaperoned

                or tote these packaged memories of harm

passed sleeping babes and hungry hearts

                in settlement of tearful bedroom stories.

Dr. Walter Boswell

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