Earth, earth, <br />riding your merry-go-round <br />toward extinction, <br />right to the roots, <br />thickening the oceans like gravy, <br />festering in your caves, <br />you are becoming a latrine. <br />Your trees are twisted chairs. <br />Your flowers moan at their mirrors, <br />and cry for a sun that doesn't wear a mask. <br /> <br />Your clouds wear white, <br />trying to become nuns <br />and say novenas to the sky. <br />The sky is yellow with its jaundice, <br />and its veins spill into the rivers <br />where the fish kneel down <br />to swallow hair and goat's eyes. <br /> <br />All in all, I'd say, <br />the world is strangling. <br />And I, in my bed each night, <br />listen to my twenty shoes <br />converse about it. <br />And the moon, <br />under its dark hood, <br />falls out of the sky each night, <br />with its hungry red mouth <br />to suck at my scars.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-it-was-written/
