To A Wallace Stevens Poem

“Last evening the moon rose above this rock

impure upon a world unpurged.

The man and his companion stopped 

to rest before the heroic height.”

“How To Live, What To Do”

                 Wallace Stevens

I remembered the title of the poem,

wondered why,

looked it up.

The heroic rock above a world unpurged 

is another clue.

I am no hero, nor a rock, not even an

attendant lord sure of my station.

I’m just another man that time forgot,

washed away by the tsunami of the era.

The unpurged world is where I live,

the world of mud men lusting for mud.

Not a pretty picture, but it is what is…

don’t tell me I cannot see.

The millions that died in wars…did they

ever achieve their victory?

Has humanity evolved past the instinct 

to survive?

Going to Mars is a cruel joke on top of

the cruel joke of being alive.

Only a mountain has the strength 

to remain unmoved.