A company man on his day off

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            thinks of: 

            blue sky 
not the oppressive space of huge warehouses 
chopped by endless categories of air 
not lines, struts, vast pitiless squares 
and vicious skylights inexorably gray 

            white clouds 
not hangers of outmoded airfields deserted 
where invisible zeppelins of greed play &  
balloon proportionless as from spent minds 
with rows of stuff massed against the spirit 

            mountain stillness 
not the silences of men marching indifferent 
to drummers long since dead of old desire 
public men incorporating their greatnesses 
indisputable, indisputed, without mistake 

            grassy slopes 
not the soft demolition of daily statistics 
not the rapine[1] of gadgets working their ways 
not fluorescent promises winking in steel whispers
amidst assembled measured boxes of production
            but 

            morning 
standing waist deep in the simple light flowing 
in mountain streams when the selling of the thing 
occupied the boy never at all fly-fishing for ideals
even as the fleeting trout rose at the rainbows. 

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[1] Rapine, “the violent seizure of someone’s property,” pronounced rapәn,  or rappin’.