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Saturday 12 November 2011

The Ghosts of Yesteryear - Gail Taylor


The Ghosts of Yesteryear

by Gail Taylor


Here we stand,
or perhaps,
 more in truth,
we slowly disintegrate
into another state of being.
Gray, black and stark,
we grope tenuously
the edges of the road you travel.
Our naked, twisted limbs
still stretch upwards
as a prayer - perhaps
or maybe
only a haunting testament
of what was lost
Once we flourished
with leaves and growth,
but now we languish
mere ghosts of yesteryear.
Man can now scurry
promiscuously,
hither and yon,
without ever taking heed,
across his proudly paved surfaces,
spewing toxins
that all must breathe.
No notice is taken
of what is left behind
in the withering wake
of their creation.
Man’s alleged progress
has sealed our fate,
Dammed the rising water
to lay fallow
at our drowning roots
And damned us
to become
those eerie ghosts
of yesterday.

1 comment:

Conrad DiDiodato said...

Gail,

a sad, tragic and all too real assessment of what all of our efforts really amount to in the end.

I do see,however, the disintegration "into another state of being" as a hopeful (deleuzzian) image of the power of human 'becomings' and the propensity to shape our lives into different versions of the same ol' realities.