Geese

[TranquillityBase]

“I am fire and air; my other elements 

I give to baser life”

– Cleopatra, "Antony and Cleopatra" (scene ii), by William Shakespeare



A Blizzard

like powdered amnesia

hushes land and sky--



horizon's lost all meaning.



This isn’t a noble place

but the soil is red

and sometimes the river freezes over in gold

like god is an artery cut through our centre   



and still people work

descending through the days

like geese in perfect pitch

of pale plumes and snowfall.



Our history is the history of falling,

                and violence,

      and love,   

the soil is red

and everywhere the earth screamed so loud


it lost its voice

again and again



I give to baser life.

First off, I'm glad the spacing is happenstance.  I do prefer it in single space.

Of course, they don't have blizzards in Egypt, so I am perhaps way off base in my Egypt reading.  But it does have red soil and an arterial river.  So you've go me over a barrel    It's also land that's lost its voice over and over.  But if you're writing about upstate New York, it really doesn't matter.  I'm still enjoying the hell out of my reading.

The mystery is still there, and I'm very glad about that.  Perfect last line, for me.

I guess, if anything, I'd suggest removing the epigraph, if you don't want people wandering off to Egypt.  But if it's the inspiration for the poem, it should stay.

TqB