This road could have but one end,
Not in space but in
Time.
This is not a story of rebirth:
Neither rocks nor roots
Await my pallid bones,
And the river is far away—far behind
In a life past,
Before amelioration’s
Slowly bludgeoned carcass was left
Putrefying amongst these
Immolated minarets.
This is no longer despair,
Nor a hated pure;
Merely recognition of
This thing—this place—in itself,
And what I am within it.
How can one remain
Alive in this valley of decay,
Amongst these anemic cacti?
Only with retrospection can this
Conclusion enter focus:
The need to
Deconstruct
This final tower.
Because this is the dead land.
Cactus land.
Inhabitable not by men,
But only by the prepared faces
Of whimpering ghosts.