Poetry

Feast
SF Layzell, with Editorial notes from RK Hardstaff

Because you think the bones
We left behind
Are more important than the feast

You can only see the hunters
You think they are the heroes.

You cannot hear the songs we sing to the children
The slosh of water fetched from the stream to bathe them.

You cannot smell the earth
Where rows of seeds are placed by careful hands.

You cannot taste the herbs
Packed tight into a hurting tooth.

You cannot feel the cloth
Spun from tall grasses, a form of magic
That lends itself to joyful use and splendid rot.

***

Because you think the words
We left behind
Are yours for the taking

You cannot hear the echo of applause
In the room where they were first heard.

You cannot smell the ink
On the pages where they were printed.

You cannot taste the early morning coffee
That played nurse to big ideas and hurt feelings.

You cannot feel the small determined fist
Of a baby bashing on the keyboard mid-sentence

Testing her power
Learning what it means to live together.

***

Go, ask your great machines:
What compromise is possible with people
Who cannot tell the fossil from the feast?

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