The Eggs Demanded

We now can see the downstream preening of here and now:
The age demanded us, back then tufts ruffled, to
Lay and breed a clutch who some soon day
Would have their thatches ruthlessly cropped wishing
To keep in key with time in age’s clutches.

What has been lopped off wasn’t brush, it
Was another’s fierce panache
Like an achievement of a bygone art.
The age demanded, thus, redecoration
To stay perceptible as such.

The age was never really ours, it was its own, a truth
Which, wingèd, we ignored until in time
We picked up on the fact that we’d lost track of it.
Yet aren’t finished, begetters regardless.
Of ages, too, that don’t belong.


November 7, 2015  [On One of Two, II]