But One by One We All Must File On

Wherever went the wild wind blows

It goes, it goes, it goes.

And bluster blown

Bent so low,

It goes

With sting of sin alone.

To post-mend by wounding,

By reminding,

By bleeding out the sour juices

Of bitter wrath and gall.

Here we taste the last trouble of man;

The cup of all the world.

We file on, subscribed by tact,

Entering on our parents back.

One by one, our lips sip

and taste the whip

and drip the waste once draught

By whom it’s taught—

Our fathers, too, sought a better drink,

But winked away by the same things we wink

And think aren’t convincing,

(But we’re all itching).

So we subscribe,

And find the bitter drink ours still,

And further, we must will the cup

and thank the world for what it brings us.

We drink and smile, while

The world with us, wonders why

we like the taste. The whole remains bleeding—

But we’re healing. So rich is this thickness

It’s bitter and white—it covers our lips and

Our spiteful tongue—This is what we wink for, and so

We file on.

: :

In the quiet of a hill top, far from the clip clop,

And buzzing of mouths, the sows,

Find filling munching and crunching and smiling at him

Filing on. He squeezes a cent

Clenched between fingers like teeth,

And he listens like he’s never heard anything—

A small horn is blown by a passing breeze—a tiny bird?

The optimist sings of better things.

Each looks—the hills, the rocks, the trees—

All familiar sings of better things.

But the ocean deep, it keeps, it knows, it groans,

It goes it goes it goes.