Hard Rain
The past is another country, its ancient
buildings still standing, the old ruins
still speaking to us now. We feel a shiver,
a hush, in the cloisters of great cathedrals,
in the remains of the ancient Roman Forum.
And yet we have no feel for the people, not unlike us,
who lived and loved and made money and died;
they are so distant from us, as the buildings are not.
We contemplate the buildings, but not the people,
for somehow we always fail to imagine them.
Technology, it seems, draws us away completely
whereas the Seven Deadly Sins do not. I would
think we, all mankind, have not changed very much:
wrath is still with us, and so is greed, sloth, and pride,
nor have we overcome lust, envy, and gluttony.
Yes, love belongs to lovers, those who love,
and lust belongs to everyone else! But wrath?
Have you never been angry? Greed goes without saying,
amass more money and gold and jewels, for all
the good it will do you in your cold and silent grave.
I like sloth, I must admit, because I was never one
to do trivial tasks for ridiculous people and rarely,
if ever, got my essays and homework in on time.
Pride, or so I was taught, was not such a bad thing,
I belong to a culture of overblown ancient claims!
Envy is the green-eyed god and hardly signifies,
unless the girl you love walks off with another man.
Gluttony is what you do when you are old and sad and sick
because you can’t do any of the others above, I have
no problem, pal, if you choose to eat yourself to death.
We try to be oh-so-nice but we rarely succeed,
smiling ever so politely in social situations, masking
a maelstrom of personal hopes and ambitions.
When you go for a shit you go for a shit alone,
and this is what goes on in our minds as well.