with a nod to Joseph Rice

We only rent the past from the shade
of our declining tribe. They are our elders
laughing under the polaroid image of an ash
tree, felled by the sheer emerald beauty
that bored into our mutual joke.

If we lose the thread in that coarsened
sackcloth of principle, please send
a reminder to the best of us. In return
we hope to at least wave as you fly by.
It is the nature of things to want

to beg a truce under the splendid branch
of scorn. Don’t fall for it. We have hauled
this harvest in too late. We know you
are in the jaws of the next big thing.
We wish you well.