A Ravening

The land suffers too much greening; luxuriance froths to fever and glut, birds cannot consume all the insects, nor serpents eat the thronging flocks. The soil hogs on the swill of decay, drey and burrow are ovens for a prowling pestilence. There is no softness. The sun bites the bloated and rancid, a balance is tipped off kilter, the climate repaints its face more garish each day. A little poverty is needed, a tax on the riotous and abundant, the sickly succulence of ripe sap be drained and clarified. We live now in the eyes of strangers, hunters are maddened by the gnawing of long fevered bones.