The Age Demands

                                                Walt Whitman split the wood,

                                                you came to carve it,

                                                and now we are left

                                                            with the face of things---

                                                but the metaphor:

                                                shall we keep carving

                                                            whittle the image

                                                                        an axhandle

                                                look away

                                                            turn to stone

                                                demand all

                                                            bonfire of commerce

First published Foxtail (1988).