Here and There, Now and Then

Burnt umber dawn, swaying electric trees
Thousands of souls chant in the summer wind
Journals of the dead are read by schoolchildren
They awake shaking someone else's dreams from their heads

Static electricity on the nape of your neck
In the television, on your phone, in your dinner
The calling of a murder of crows from the trees
You remember the view from the hospital room window

A smorgasbord of life and limb, death and decay
The antiseptic smell has an undercoating of rot and dirt
Talismans won't work any more than prayers and candles
Soldiers still fight lost wars, glory in the faded night

Tall fences are built to keep the worlds separate
But everything that ever was still is, still lives
Take your flowers to the ICU and give a last kiss on the forehead
Bury your bones, but listen for the chanting on the wind