Sunday, June 28, 2015

Plato's Retreating Shadows

Paradise Island, Bahamas

The Atlanteans return
On summer break
For the blue lights
And the white sand
And the palms still unconstrained 
Like ancient breasts

The blacks of many colors
Keepers of its keys
Who stayed in the wake
Of their apocalypse
Point their rhyming fingers
At the illuminated towers
And tell of Judgment for the lack
Of any morality
(Laughing anyway)

The world is not just
This imagined diorama
Of the once and future empire
It is here in the living shadows
Of the palm leaves on stone
And in the cloudwoman's tears
That bring new life for the failures
Of free will made every moment
And in the notes
Of the breeze
Afraid to say
What it knows
Too clearly