586. OVER THE FAULT LINE

OVER THE FAULT LINE
There was ever a moment like this :
the grand city of the vizier, running down
on its heels, its armies discouraged, its
banks sacked, and only moles left to
tell the stories. Men around campfires,
armless men, broken in battle, crippled
and defeated on the distant plains - they'd
struggled home, dragged on tree-trunk litters,
salvaged in animal skins, carrying the parts
they'd lost in battle. The string of arms and legs,
gathered together, bore a wagon of its own.
Sadness and sunrise, each morning, went together.
Their mothers and wives had died; nary a care
was left except the new urban worries of pain
and money and food and sustenance. They told
stories around the fires at night. Some swore,
really swore, they'd seen that man, one distant
midnight ago, arise from the dead and walk on;
'arise from their graves and aspire, to where my
sunflower wishes to go.' Someone else swore
they'd heard those words - recited back from
what he'd called a 'future,' but couldn't tell
if real or imagined. The others, totally
weary and beat, merely shook
their tired heads.