after Frost & Auden

I am awakened too early. I cannot be awake.
The growl of my neighbor’s leaf-blower is what prehistoric man,
cowering in his cave, cowered from.
How do you forgive your neighbor?
Golden Delicious apples are no longer golden nor delicious.
Who dares say that nature’s first green is gold?
I have a sense of sweet foreboding;
my parents embrace their grandson, lingering.
I take out the trash, wash my hair, earn a paycheck.
What good does anything do?
I will do good, I will do good, I will do good
though cruel people hammer at my door.
What is cruelty but cowardice dressed
in a suit and tie, prattling from a lectern?
I tear out my eardrums, watch seaweed kissing piles
until the jetty sleeps in its bed of foam. I worship all
that thrives in wreckage. I am a sail, beating to windward.
I am backstage of Earth’s only theatre; my body is
my only instrument. I am afraid. I pull back fear like a curtain.
I am sublime, though the crowd boos and curses my very blood.
It’s all too much. It’s not enough.
You must love the buzzards hungry for your meat, or die.