Robert Ian Scott
Monotony
This great flat place goes on forever,
or seems to, not changing enough to offer
much relief, its only mountains not Rockies,
but only Pebblies, Bad Hills, with few trees
and bad as hills because so flat, only sand,
and all its details affect us...
the way we can feel its heat draining
to the stars which do not need it, or us,
its national anthem, an empty silence,
its national animal, a clam that tried
not to live, so inert some say it never did,
its language, one word so boringly repeated,
its motto, one dull word, never, never,
its capital, named for a dead queen neither
amusing nor amused, much less amazing,
its lakes, mostly mud, its rocks, muddy sand
and sandy mud, and its weather makes thunder
and blizzards a blessing...
anything, to interrupt that silence!
And yet, what we do not hear may matter more,
the streams fingering the flatness, dissecting
it into something more interesting,
the weeds poking up through pavements,
the world still transforming itself, and us.
Page(s) 99
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