The World's Bones

The World’s Bones

I have been huge, I have loomed
Over many landscapes. I have been Promethean.
Men have been grateful, and sacrificed.

I have written poems, and they are large.
My giant self moved in their landscape
Like some ancient god of thunder or fire.

I have written and started lines
With the word “I”, and they have been true.
In giant self I have molded mountains.

Now I am liver-spotted and dumbfounded.
The great days are past, and I am large
On the earth as a giant ribcage.

Not some titan cast to earth by younger gods,
Bleached bones even in death
Reaching mightily to form the world’s peaks.

Nor like Leviathan, caught in monstrous combat,
Wrestling a demon of the deep for lordship,
Cast up on land to at last gasp out the world’s rivers.

No. Suddenly the landscape is shrunk, and I lie
Bare-boned, washed up on a small, closed coast,
Relic of some animal volunteers were unable to save.