Karl Elder
ON REVOLUTION
Answers aren't necessarily answers.
Boys will not necessarily be boys.
Cancer's no panacea for cancers;
Du Bois, though, was no W. D. Boyce.
Every revolution must have its own
flag, as it is itself a flag, the wind
granting glory to oak and leaf alike.
How quick, however, hubris turns humus
in the long run, which, all said and done, is
justice, if not nature clearing its path.
Kill and be killed or love a little while.
Like it or not, life, love, and luck all leave
much too much to be desired and thus
never nearly enough mulch for the roots
of whatever future there's to be felled,
past or present. As for the last word, its
cue comes not in the sound of a whimper,
rarely a bang, and mostly a whisper.
Sisters are especially apt as was
Thoreau's when at his deathbed she asked, "Do
you want to make your peace with God now?" A
vexing thought for a rebel turned angel.
What could he say but, "I have no quarrel"?
Xanthus, of course, is the name of the horse
young men ride into heaven, bridled, mute.
Zephyr, stud that he was, would have approved.