Incompletions

Gary Beck

   Endeavors in the world expand

   the struggle for continuance,

   a crazed collector, amassing art

   not quite oxygen enough to go around

   and competitive respiration harms

   man, beast, insect, plant,

   all staggering separately,

   under the most determined assault

   that man the marauder has ever mounted

   against mother nature.

   And if ears grow dull from incessant throb

   of machine, siren, explosion, shriek, sob;

   the child laugh, bird trill, man music

   will pierce the encrustation

   of a thousand deafening screams

   relieving the pillars of the skull,

   however briefly, of their burden;

   eyes, greatest gift after brain,

   design attributed to unknown master

   may let us see another moment

   with our limited video vision,

   of wondrous nature.