Poem: "Seek Not the Riches"

Against the depredations of industry

Tyler B. Morrison

Sep 11, 2023

This poem was first published in The Lost Country literary journal.

Seek Not the Riches

By Tyler Morrison

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Seek not the riches under the earth,
Not silver, gold, or black gold, oil.
For there is found a wealth of sorrow.
Of joy you’ll find a beggar’s dearth.

Yet if ye must, then go at once,
And sooner return to moats of dust.
Work. Labor. Toil.

Break the rock and stab the dirt,
Pierce and bleed the virgin soil.
Blast the mountains, burn the woods,
And drink whole oceans dry.
Contrive a way to leach the air
And steal at last the open sky.

Oh, Man is bent o’er the world he bends.
He warps a thing to match his thought,
Corkscrews form to fit his ends.
And Nature, like arthritic hands,
Will twist to strange, contorted shapes
Till straight be crooked, crooked straight,
Hatred love, and love be hate.

And all the while 
The drudges trudge on, trod-on, wretched. 
Seeking spoils, fetching nothings, 
They pour out sweat and dredge up dregs, 
Wasting time and hope, their blood and breath.
Oh, Heaven weeps, oh!
Heaven weeps at the Second Death.