Lindsey Royce: Hooray For Me, The Hell With You

In an immaculate boardroom, whose cherry-wood meeting table,
credenza, and wet bar, one that overlooks the Lincoln Memorial,
maybe the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, where
a group of political cons play shell games with our futures.

Corporations offer kickbacks for corrupt votes, and cons
who just might appreciate lupine spread over the hills like scepters,
like torches against harm, instead protect second homes in these mountains
where manicured lawns give way to wild grass for miles, where
a new aspen’s trembling trunk is no thicker than a finger—

Yet they vote for oil, for destroying national monuments,
eroding parks, choking birds mute with each forest cleared.

Who fails to praise lilacs shaking off perfume with rain?
Who misses the lap of lake against shore, the plunk of trout flipping with joy?
Who seeks to dim our stars and moon?
What more defeat do they offer us, these so-called servant leaders?

Their greed may annihilate us—and bears, wolves, mountain lions,
air, land, rivers. Yet they mock those who care, as snowflakes, tree-huggers,
we who worry about the Arctic melt, the ozone burn,
the exact date our common earth will char, crumble like a used match.

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Copyright 2018 Lindsey Royce