Their Painted Desert
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
They wait. They wait beneath. They wait below
Us, we who live. Some wait in mud like Peat
Men sacrificed for long lost reasons. Woe
Is far beyond them. Cities lie complete
Though broken and beyond our sight with sea
Or eons made of earth and later sand,
And detritus of buildings, pottery,
Or pyroclastic stone which made a strand
So dense that men forgot the place. The trees
Of forests long ago submerged contain
No oxygen and do not rot. No pleas
Arise from them but still they have the stain
Of hope as brutal as slow petrified
Wood strewn on wastes. The dead await their guide.