Good From Bad

The World Dawn

0219.2025

Here we go together,

awakening in this beautiful morning,

lost in its potential—

when the dust of destruction is unknowable.

Lately, I think of you and your country,

how you’ve skirted the grave,

carried the losses—

and of her, moving through the hours,

not whole, not gathering herself,

but bearing history’s construction

and its modern decay on her back.

It’s only the dust in her mouth,

carried on the wind from the sea—

and already, someone she knows is the dust.

This is why we can’t cry anymore.

How does anyone complete the tasks at hand

when the last hour looms,

when you move in the proof of it?

Everything we do is tinged with the reminder—

the final hours among us, a phantom

watching our joy, ax in hand.

Who knew the caravanserai

of suits and bread,

ivory tower Barbies, and the wretched

could bring such potential to living—

because the going of my country, ‘tis of thee

is anywhere in the world.

m.c.f.