In the first six months of the pandemic, I thought often about characterizations of world history, world events, and how poets make accounts during crises. The philosopher Hegel was often in mind, his idea of the world soul. I was also rereading the book of Revelation and thinking about racialized violence at the root of our history. The perceptions of things floating across the various screens and landscapes were often markers. This poem is part of a sequence of 24 poems I worked on to weave a sense of dailiness and eternity, solitude and community.•
This poem appears in the Summer 2021 issue of Alta Journal.
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They gave up their fear of sincerity
They gave up their decorated nights
Evening birdsong had folded into chalk
Evening shadows grew less white
We’d been faithful mostly
to our own special tribe
Couldn’t keep the burned forests alive
Of the beasts of the apocalypse one was light green
It was a dream We didn’t choose that
We chose the rat the cat the fox the past
& when we sang to ourselves the song went
What is the voice of the age my friends
What is the age of the voice
Adenine Cytosine Guanine Uracil
The voice of the age is a fragment
O sea of glass Cart of straws O air
round as the love of moths
Hard to forgive certain centuries my friends
The age of the voice is the choices
The voice of the page is the voices
O love song in an old blue cart
Wheel of ciphers wheel of eyes
Wheel of beauty code & blues
The voice of the age is the voices
for G
