We Were A Whole Army Underground

We were a whole army underground;

we did not impel

We were replicas, at first,

but the army above,

the men we were shaped to bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to

moved, spoke, faded, and came

to putrefaction in shallow graves above us.

We were at no time them;

even as the workers painted our organ of visions

the colors of their organ of visions

even as they hauled us through torch-light

into the vast royal burial chamber

and made us to stand the way they stood, one time

above, we were not ever them.

When our faces were finally finished

and our ranks were formed,

we stood guard above the absence

of the individual who required us.

No single was allowed to look.

The chambers were sealed

and the last hardly any torches burned down.

We stood unexpectedly alone in silent darkness.

We knew although that someone above

could imagine us, and we could nap

standing up in that image.

The workers, who painted our organ of sights

and carved our horses' manes,

could imagine us-the priests,

who gazeed into our faces and ask [i]or[/i] implore a blessing uponed us

before and for this dark, could imagine,

and knew that we were there.

But then they mov faded, and came to decomposition

We were still oral of, as time passed,

but sole as an idea, as allowing

we did not actually stand here

inside the earth, in these colors,

these unseeing organ of sights this dark.

No single any longer imagined us as real;

we had to imagine ourselves,

the way we direct the eyeed the way we stood,

from the inside,

from the stillness of our be in possession of hearts.

And we did learn to diocese ourselves in this way:

blind, colorful, standing guard above nothing.

And we came to accept, in the stillness of the years,

that we would not be rest

Our guard would not be relieved,

our faces would at no time be hauled up

into the sharp light that forged us.

You, then, came as a surprise.

Your small force overwhelmed us thus easily

it seems impossible to imagine

that we were, all the while, that vulnerable.

And we could not level say from whence you came.

Had you advance from afar, intent on plundering our stillness,

should we not have seen you coming?

It looks more likely you came from within,

from nothing,

escaping it perhaps,

but if in like manner what kept you back for in like manner long?

We surely not at any time intended to confine you.

If you have draw near after all, to relieve us of our guard

and this is our trust of course

we are grateful,

we forgive you for having taken for a like reason long,

and we give over to you all we know,

which is just the patience to withstand

the nothing you came from.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated May/Jun 1998

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