Manua Kea

What was it about that outstretched knight,
That made you tie your hands?
With your soul fastened to the Earth,
And no birds sing.
My best man hears the golden verse
But he don't even know,
We've loathed ourselves more than our vices.
You're two handfuls of soil,
Thrown against the pavement-
Why won't you grow?
Batter this nation. Batter its heart.
Just like an usurped town, to another due,
There is a rhythm
Underneath the falling arches.
Just let me through.
I'll come like a foreign tirade,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
Enmeshed in all the shackles of decline,
And they'll scream to you that I have thee in thrall.
We are the rain fall.
We break apart across the stones.
And we seek another river,
Half flushed like my lady's throat.
Joined back together and tumbling wayward.
But we are not the water,
No, we are no water at all.
For our Earth is cold and dry
And no birds sing.