You called it savage
I called it paradise
Lilac clouds reached
For the tips of the pines
We sheltered in their branches
And foraged for wild delicacies
Prometheus came and went and then
Red-gold fires blazed in stone theaters
And the land still gave forth what it could
But we tried to coax out more and more and more
We docked our canoes on the shores of the channel
And soon they were starting to look more like triremes
We paraded over lofty bridges and decked ourselves in silk and gold
We built aqueducts and cordoned off little circles of wildness in terracotta cradles
So they wouldn’t be ousted by the tide of marble sweeping over the bustling hills
We raised our temples to the sky, we pushed away the clouds
And one day they came down and beheaded all our statues
We killed each other for sport, but we condemned the storm
When she ripped people’s lives from their chests
And we took out our blinding rage on each other
Because we couldn’t lash out at the odious sky
When it was all over not a human soul was left
Pillars left to crumble in a mossy embrace
Lands left to heal from the rape of their fruit
Clouds hang low over tranquil waters
The world is back at equilibrium
You call it desolation
I call it freedom