My beast, my era, who would bear
Within your corneas to glimpse,
And with their blood to glue together
The backbones of two centuries?
Blood is a builder, and she gushes
From every earthly thing, in sprays.
The spineless laggard merely flushes
Upon the doorstep of new days.
A creature must, while life keeps grasping,
A spine-crest carry all the way.
With its transparent backbone cresting
A rolling ocean wave would play.
As if a newborn's tender gristle,
An era of an infant earth’s
Again — all lamb-like, sacrificial,
A crown of life — was given forth.
To pull an era from its prisons,
And to commence a world renewed,
The knees of knotted days together
We have to tether with a flute.
And it's the era that keeps bending
The wave with lonely human angst;
And it's the era's golden standard
The viper breathes out in the grass.
The buds will keep on swelling, soaking,
Then spraying greenery in brines;
And yet your backbone has been broken,
My era — pitiful, sublime!
Now, you peer backwards, cruel and feeble,
And smiles of meaninglessness toss;
Just like a beast, that once was nimble,
Transfixed by trails of its own paws.
Blood is a builder, and she gushes
From every earthly thing, in jets,
And onto shores, with scorching fishes,
Warm gristle of the seas projects;
While from azúre and soggy mountains,
And from a high-up net for birds
Upon your deadliest of bruises
Indifference pours down in spurts.
— 1923/1936