On The Ground

From my perch
Here, on the sidewalk,
I watch the earth shatter into concrete shards,
see faces spilling from their high and mighty horses--
while the horses still stand.

And I was already here,
on the ground.
I know where I belong.
Now they have descended to my level.
This is where they should be, but no one told them.
All of them crushed, like the mirrors they gaze through every morning;
every night trying to observe what others will see.
Does it tell them anything?
Do they see what I've known the whole time?

...that none of us are poets--
we're just the expressive ones who want attention.
none of us are happy--
we are all thieves, stealing others' time and space and energy.
none of us are beautiful--
we are all ugly and worried.
We are not poets--
We are not people--
We are on the ground--
Where we belong.

12/10/97