We are the knife people, iron men, coat people
---and he-lands-sailing.
Souse eaters, house makers, husbands
---of kine and goat and swine, farm builders
---and keepers of kettle and scummer, word
---scratchers, corn stealers and bad sleepers.
As if towns could build themselves.
As if stumps jumped from the ground or
---flesh of beasts fell into trenchers.
As if paradise prevailed on earth.
To come to rich moulds and lush plantings,
---long-necked trees and tongues of land,
to redd the wild for the unborn.
---To reck not the peril.
Suffering snakes that may fly, wolves
---that may ravish. Kingdom
---of sachem and sagamore.
Kingdom of corn and thorny promise.
To satisfy our appetite of spirit,
---our thirst of property.
To seek not the opera of war but
---belittled by the possibilities
to stand silenced by the task before us—
these be my sudden and undigested thoughts.
-John Spaulding, 1989
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