Criticism

. CRITICISM

When they come,

Asking for what you have done of her;

When they send

Needlepoints of thought back into the dead peace,

Yearning for her.

What will you say?

You have reneged.

You've turned yourselves into stone against her.

Cut yourselves a statue's hand into a gesture of defeat.

And all arms reaching joined in a single wrist

To put her down!

You've sent her back.

Into the South.

Into the East.

And West. And North.

You've sent her back to the cornfields

Back to the brooding trees,

She, smelling of the land,

Come out to meet you.

She, naked but for her speech

And the native tang of her tongue.

'Washed in your rivers,

And her feet

Familiar with your roads.

You denied her.

You flattened her out.

You returned her to the soil for seed.