Drag Strip Run Horizon-ward

These fields are remade
renewed upon our blood
nourished with the
strident calls of those
hurt and dying in the
smoke and roar of battle
all those invisible things
that yet linger upon the
cusp of knowledge,
just beyond the horizon
we've surpassed in
haste and with eyes
closed, sleeping through
the unintended consequences
of our skill for rationalization,
our hope for something greater,
our sense that we are in some
way omnipotent, despite all
evidence to the contrary.

And would we be contrary
or so adjudged, when we
chose to ignore the evidence
of all those who, despite
criticism, gainsay our
claims of omnipotence,
somewhere hoping for sense
and purpose greater than
hope, given blindly into
rationalizations of our own
bad deeds, a skill for which
we have long since chosen
to ignore the consequences,
nor even claimed that they
are unintended, but that
we are not through sleeping,
that our eyes shall be
closed and our steps taken
in haste until we are
surpassed on our long
drag strip run horizon-ward,
knowledge the cusp we shall
never linger upon, things
we find invisible always
obvious to all the rest,
as red and raw as the battle's
roar and the dying hurt
of strident soldiers, undernourished
and giving blood to renew
and remake our fields.


Patrick M. Tracy
7/18/12