What if you can’t do well do good?
What if my electric car
And diligent recycling
Mean less than nothing to
The slave-wage worker

The squirrels were dancing in the trees
On a cataract of leaves
Occluding the moon,
And fields of tobacco slept
Like unlit dreams.

The night hangs low and shatters treetops
Like a brain bludgeoned against a wall,
Bone obliterated, thought incinerated,
Oozing toward the denuded earth,
And I resist.
Sleepless, restless, hopeless—yes.
Still I resist.

In Vietnam we set the jungle on fire,
The leaves and branches melting like wax,
Candles blown out by blind war
Snuffing out the celebration of life.