Why do stumbles come so naturally to climbing humans
when fumbling with gravity as often they do?
Why do fate’s unlimited tentacles deliver many calamities at a time
when any one might easily overcome a man?
Why are the clues to contentment withheld so long,
till unserviceable or moot?
Why do investigators so often act surprised
by what they find under stones?
Now when power is yielded so incrementally
by those most undeserving of it,
with fears rehearsed and laminated till inflexible
yet still no protection.
Unthinkable deeds done and undoable deeds attempted
pose no barrier to such perjured progress;
so the winds turning common men
never seem to come from the same direction.
Victims of non sequiturs we remain.
Dust landing on us now is cold,
poison in innocuous places, dangerous to breathe,
what humans exhale is poison even to themselves
as sure as oleander.
We too often meekly give up, shortsighted dwarfs
conniving short lifespan schemes,
unashamedly forsaking the very things
we most need to understand here.