Stages of Petrification

 Out of our cradle

endlessly rocking

so soothing to suck and swing,

we be, Wives to the House

we working women

with clean fingernails.

Rural and dirty, illiterate, failed to be-

come organized and erected,

built and projected by chart.

Fortunate: Educate the ‘poor’,

Entitle the ‘rich’ by degrees and adding zeros

we carry on, pound for pound.

In War

Peace. Conflict. Stability. Conflict.

War, Again. The sequel.

Work harder, work longer, work smarter, weave your

World Wide Webs

Catch the drift and save it for later.

Faith

Science

Tradition

Armed men have arrested the development

of reach, nucleic re-armament fires up

and we women make mud pies

with what we have.

Grow food, “make” food, “buy” food

and storage for later.

Trees to homes to paper planes,

Origamic Plastic Pyramids

surmounting slag on landfill,

a slippery slope, a slide-show.

Bare feet babies scramble to fill shoes

made from recycled tires

and the miles

felt without insoles.

It is too late to change courses.

Adapt. Improve. De(con)struct. It was all made

for you

to find a swing of things, how high

may be gotten before

going all the way around

giving blood

blisters from holding our chains

too tight.

Image of photo By Nikater (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Petrified Forest.