Lawnless
It's blisteringly dry.
Martian, winedark, overweight -
No lawns on this mesa of millet-baked pie,
To make this crater straight.
No spades here, no scraping rake.
Just sharp sticks, blood-bricked mortar.
Berbers camp here for old time's sake,
But can't stay; as there's no water.
In this sahara's nape,
There sinks this winderly dome.
Winedark, martian, squat-blooded black grape,
The Nomads' ruined home.
Its winedark walls're muralled,
Of a grand god grazed by honest plague.
His gentle green ways enmarbled,
Wonderfully weathered, and vague.
He sent no fire or floods,
So those drifters still kiss his hand.
He let grave waves pave their jungly woods,
In a lawnless scheme most grand.
Ancient bone-sands, sifting.
Campfire rise, boots trace.
Dead trees' shoots forever lifting
That Martian, winedark place.
The green god grins, in a mirror's embrace.
The dome, squat-blooded, has an ozyman grace;
If lawned, he'd have deserted it, its peoples displaced;
And there'd be less life living upon his face.
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