And still you allow the wild to awake, take fire, and break free
You still listen for the chatter of the ancient trees gossiping secrets of freedoms dreamed
You still believe the hope of these towering hills and blinding plains, the lie of infinite rains
You still swim the chaos of rapid waters forsaking the eddies, the ease, the still pools of disease

And still

And still
You’ve become this bloated butterball baking
Basted brightly in cortisol tattoos
And Schadenfreude shampoos
Laboring place to place
A slower and slower pace
Agony in your face
Cowering against connections
Ignoring local elections
Seeking advantage and protection
To mock and tweak
The others you seek
To re-tweak, re-Tweet,
Fellow-travelers naive as thee, judging them, my phrasing, and me

I worry for your heart
Your literal and figurative heart
America

And still
Here I sit
You remind me
This armchair pundit opining
This internet poet resigning
To soft wrinkles, a stiff spine
A graceless and sad decline
Still overwriting every goddmamn line

True
True, I admit
That’s it, that’s it
I too
I too am
Complicit

And still
I do
I do still worry
I still worry for you
My fattened flailing friend
My family
My blood
My soul
My soil
Coiled to bite
Too spoiled to fight
Happy Birthday goodnight
Happy Birthday goodnight