Praise Be To Our Guiding Cactus Star
The template of days
Rising and setting
By the discipline of planetary batons
Now remotely sensing
A foreboding of ill tides
Islands cracking with fire
Icy winds whipping the farther shores
Herds of humans drowned in mud
The bison feels it
In its bones
The dromedary’s shadow
Straying in the sand
The mouths of babes
Spewing acid rain
All hangs
By the thinnest of threads
May it soon be the cord
That hangs the ill will
Of those bent on destruction
May their dispatch be hasty
And the autumn of our discontent
Witness the untimely blooming
Of a guiding cactus star
Entangling us to the entrails
Of an earth we are unknown to be.
Pina Piccolo, 18 October 2022