For Hibbing's Age of Wicked

(Fragments for a Paternity Day Ballad -- apologies to Robert Milkwood Thomas)

From that very first morning
after I'd been well-spanked
I looked out to the tracks
quickly receding

From stormchild early warnings
I ran but by degrees
my feet too tight on soles
too loose for beating

I won't give up, you know I won't
I shouted at my elders
who rule the world in terror and in silence
I won't give up I will set sail
against the spiral raging in the balance

From earliest awakening
I stumble against rank
to bury my source back
into its gravel

We have no origins or seed
our sages all agree
there is no whole cloth
from which lives unravel

(I won't give up, you know I won't
I whispered at my schoolmates
who rule the world in terror and in silence
I won't give up I will set sail
against the spiral raging in the balance)

Remember O rememberer
your failures all in bloom
to press your sagging wrinkles
into towers

Remember O rememberer
some saving grace of youth
might yet scream stormy daybreak
into flowers

I won't give up, you know I won't!
I whimper at my comrades
who rule the world in terror and in silence
I won't give up I will set sail
against the spiral raging in the balance

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