The Tower of Pisa leans.
The Vatican cracks and fades.
London Bridge is wearing away
And drifts to the Everglades,
Where the old miasma rises
And predators wait in the mud
While lingering insecticides
Course through their cold blood.
Every day we're breathing
The molecules and the dross
From Alexander's footsteps
And fragments of the cross.
Glaciers fall in the ocean.
Carbon fills the air.
Acres of old growth forest
Stand in need of repair
Like our fashionable wardrobes,
Wearing into rags.
Our skin is food for dust mites.
The infrastructure sags.
This sort of thing is common.
It's what our betters do,
Lingering in the grave,
Where I shall molder too.
Read Aquinas and Shakespeare.
Learn a useful trade.
Everything falls to disrepair,
No matter how well made.
I doubt that it's imaginable,
Whatever comes after this,
Something like starry symphonies
Or the City of Dis.
No matter what's hereafter,
No matter the heaven to come--
It remains as dark as midnight,
An indeterminate sum.
Jerry Harp has published three books of poems, most recently URBAN FLOWERS, CONCRETE PLAINS (Salt 2006). His "CONSTANT MOTION": ONGIAN HERMENEUTICS AND THE SHIFTING GROUND OF EARLY MODERN UNDERSTANDING was just published by Hampton Press. His book "FOR US, WHAT MUSIC?" ON THE LIFE AND POETRY OF DONALD JUSTICE will be published later this year by University of Iowa Press. He teaches at Lewis & Clark College.
Archived at http://www.girlswithinsurance.com/index.php/poetry/42-poetry/197-jh-0410-gloria and shortlinked at http://frsh.in/ah
