WAITING TO BE SERVED

                                        Everyone praises a different day
                                        but few know their nature.
                                                            – Hesiod (“Works and Days”)

Today, the world changes—too many people
leaning towards the north star has tipped the planet,
exposing shadow beneath the tree that we believed
would comfort us and always bear fruit.

Yes, we are the centerpiece of that myth,
adding the last bit of gold thread to the fabric
that comes untrue, unraveling and fading
in the relentless, everlasting look of the sun.

Now I can remember, replay the finer details
from a distance, see myself among the mindless,
shoulder-to-shoulder in the crowding alleys
pressed onward towards the mounted silhouettes

in the sunset. But a corral board broke early-on,
around Vietnam. The sky was clearer then,
more obvious and less complicated, not everyone
leaned in the same direction, waiting to be served.