In Another Time

If I was born a thousand years ago
perhaps the beauty of birds
or all the natural world
would have been enough for me,
but mere words in adoration
cannot stay my head from pain
while all the skies are pretty blue
and all praise of nature the same
as the poet’s eternal view.

If I was born one hundred years ago
I would have spewed industrial lines
and wrapped myself in soot and coal
to smell like rugged workers in the mines,

But I was born defined by tech,
made mad by the mechanization of life,
the robotics of being young
and needing force fed technical knowledge,
while nature grew ever distant,
and the unnatural act of living the norm:
the endless going and coming
amid a plight to work to live
and the weakness of starvation
brought forth through things that should make life better,
yet have taken the form of our Masters.