slow rain

equity 
falls a slow rain

and cursing at the edge

of the wasteland 

are the desert builders

clearcutters

fearful 

of the coming bloom

would they,

if they could defy the

direction of time,

return to their forbears’

age of struggle

to place a boot on a neck?

with every droplet

that sounds the

gong of progress

their blood rises

blood enriched

with traces

of sharecropper 

of mill hand

of sweatshops and docks

makers of

steel mountains of

asphalt tributaries

backs as bent from

the weight of labor 

as the paranoids are

over their hoard

their axes raised 

but rusting

as 

a slow rain 

continues
(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead 

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