so there is water out there south and west
that’s all we see and out beyond more land
and stranger places on each palm-fringed strand
will seem like us the modern dispossessed
who don’t belong but have got the bequest
of gold and green passed down from hand to hand
so that each has to make some sort of stand
or claim that they’ve been given a great test
these are the lies that little children tell
when parents think that they are fast asleep
to scare each other by pretending brave
the ones that later turn to the hard sell
making the painful seem ungodly cheap
while the blue water waits to be our grave
