The Empty Bottle

A summer flood upon the desert, rolling the arroyos like a nostrum for the seeds that cling in desperation to that long forgotten ghost life that the animals once knew, and know once more until the filtering sand grows brutal in its thirst, and once again the brooding cloud is mother only to the sea. What then? Always, the cycle born anew amid lush visions of a paradise, (Did not the laughter echo in those jaded hearts?) brown bottles carried home to prize and treasure as their secret miracles allay our hopelessness. What then? All the packaged gods we bought, those neat and tidy little wars with child-proof caps preserve our just complacency. White marble crypts and solemn rites make glorious the sealed boxes covered by the gonfalon. The anthem swells a thousand chests before the game, a thousand chills beneath the rostrum of the damned. What then? Nostrums all, to serve us well, excusing time for re-directed splendor. All the gods enshrined until the twilight creeps across, revealing only pride, the fall, the bottle empty...dry. What then? ~