Since then



Time was

you could pitch your home to the winds,

roll out your lawn wherever

you came to earth,

forage for gnatosaurs, plump and wriggling,

in your intake filters

and grill them on the nearest patch

of open ground.


We'd find

grills aplenty where the Foremen lived;

their land burned easy; too,

only pyrophiles grew there:

no good to eat, but sure keep you warm

at night.


And talk about stars!

They'd be falling, falling,

burn across the sky like torches

set to conflag the whole night,

if they hit Foremenland they just might

do that, but mostly they'd skyquench somewhere

on the up and up.

And star-metal flowers'd show where,

come spring