Invisibility

What has become of us?
We, who’s rough hands formed
All things of industry.
We who brought down the beast
And made of him a meal.
We who clothed
And fed the body,
Who nurtured the growing things
On our blood.
We who mined and smelted
And forged
The very iron which binds us;
Made cathartic
With the bondage of toil,
We serve and sooth our parasites.
We lie upon
The gory ground and
Surrender-up our weathered flesh.
The blood and sweat
That made them strong;
Smug, bold, and imperial.
What has become of us?
Anemic and complacent–
Whipped and sickly working hounds
Who struggle to keep our cages.
Memory-haunted beings;
Objects impregnated
With the vibrations of history
Like an overcoat with wax,
To resist the worst of wind and rain.
Constantly negotiating
The ideological backwaters of was and is,
Ignoring the rough and unseemly rocks
That agitate the hulls
Of well-bred schooners.
Much of the world goes unseen,
Unnoticed like the tangled floor of a forest,
Untouched by the buried imagination,
Overlooked in the restless search for ore.