Peter Walks for Democracy

“Scotia: A Paean to Iron and the Barrens”

I’ve walked near ruins in December.
They look as though the heavy concrete
should give with each gust of wind.
They should creak, moan, groan and groan
like uncles who lost legs in the war.

But they don’t.

They stand, lonesome watchers
who lost their eyes when the coke left
with the pig iron boys who left her barren and bereft.
The jacks zipped their pants after a long gang rape
that scarred her womb with all objects on hand,
with cock-driven desires to dominate
anything they can.

And they did.

One hundred years later a pool supparates.
Nothing, nothing can live in the pyrite and iron mire.
Yet all around it call voices.
I can sing with crows and woodpeckers.

And I do.

I call out a paean of change that brings
not just a little hope. It descants the chord
that life knows best, the shifting harmonies
of endless metamorphosis.