The Ancients

(Another winter poem, reworked. Don't worry, I'll have some optimistic spring poems soon!)

Occupied by the materialness of truth:

What colour is the truth? How long is it?

How wide?

Is it wet or dry?

Would it respond if I said hi?

Does the truth make the tide go and the birds fly?

The Ancients:

I see them as the oldest trees in a green grove.

I see their faces tired and stretched,

wrinkled and hanging from the places they once were.

I see them but they cannot see me and so I cannot ask them

what they think, if they need

a drink, if they smell our polluted stink.

They are tired. No longer interested in the truth.

They remember the days going to the hilled place with my love.

He to snowshoe amongst them,

I to swim in what was once their waters,

But is now perverse and burning, responsible for their wrinkles,

their colour-fade.

The truth once had colour. It is now grey .