I dreamed I sat on a mighty seat

I dreamed I sat on a mighty seat
All hewn from living stone.
And sitting, saw the past roll by
And generations gone.

They rose in mass
And trod their day,
Brief moments pushed great wheels.
Their moment done,
They each fell down
And melted into grass.

And from their bones
Arose their sons,
In their old places stood.
They stand, each child,
By ancient wheels,
The children of all men.

So rolled the generations past.
So wheeled those graven wheels.
And voices raised
Like great bronze bells

Tolling down the years.
From scrolls tight rolled,
And brass-bound books,
The voices of those men.

They belled the faith
Of years gone by.
The dust shook in the sound.
But from the Darkness
Rolled a voice
Mightier still than those.

And, hearing words like rolling stones,
They fell upon their knees.
They cried aloud,
They cried in pain,
For mercy cried in vain.

The words once said
Could ne’er be called
Back to the void again.
Long faith broke
In that deadly wake
The bonds of iron all brake.
“Be all men free,”
The dire voice said,
“And free from all these wheels.”

But brake their hearts,
For living free,
They lost the chains of time,
Fell off the well, deep-trodden path,
And bootless spent their lives.

So all men live,
So all men die.
But now wrought none to stay.
Nor art, nor books were boded forth
From that sad darkened day.
As free as birds,
As misty air,
They wildly danced away.

The graven wheels lay silent down
And mouldered into clay.
The sere grass sighed
In the dying wind
As each man turned away.

Betsy McKenzie
July 28, 2007