Tell us again how they once listened,
how they sat hunched around the fire,
their brutish hands cracking wet bone,
exposing the flabby marrow they sucked out.
And they were listening to you,
to your cries, your chants,
your couplets, your sonnets.
No prophet cried out, “Some day
the voice will be gone;
some day the pen’s cries will fade to video.”
For, royal in the egg’s prerogative,
you thought you were immortal.
Those days have dimmed to fossil.
Gray, the unintended color,
overruns the palette like debt.
It welcomes us and you to silence.
© 2000 Jody Azzouni