Million Dead

The footnote swallows the page
Today, New York kind of looks like Beirut,
But Beirut never looked like New York
Yet New York kind of cuts to the quick as it quickens
The dispossessed define the dying age
We were so wrapped up in the internecine strife of the last of the so-called 'European' centuries,
my compadres,
that we didn't see it coming
So the footnote works its way up from the bottom of the page,
Filled with a certain understandable sense of rage,
At justice unforthcoming.
I have seen,
Two feet standing proud in the sand,
Cathedrals worn away by the rain,
New dawns bringing season's change,
Relentless.